Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

This should come as no surprise to anyone, but I really like mindless action movies, especially ones based on video games and when I heard that Prince of Persia was being adapted I thought “I want to go to there.” Much like my favorite movie, Doom, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time knew what it was and didn’t try to be more than that, it was a light hearted action fantasy with a lot of sand… and Bubble Boy.

PLOT A narrator gets everyone who hasn’t played the video games a little back story about the protagonist who turns out to have been a street urchin named Dastan who the king saw one day and thought that he had moxie and adopted him into the family. Well Dastan grew up with the king’s two moxie deficient sons and like all imaginary families he was welcomed and loved as one of their own. But not all is well in Persia as the neighboring sacred city of Alamut is selling weapons to enemies, like we do, and they plan for an attack that Dastan leads with his monkey wall climbing skills. The city is taken over and Dastan’s brother plans to take the Princess Tamina of Alamut as his bride. Everything goes downhill for Dastan who now holds in his possession a very magical knife that pretty much everyone wants and after he was tricked into gifting his father with a cloak that was made with acid thus killing him, he and Tamina go on the run together.

On the first night of their journey, Dastan discovers that the knife manipulates time. By pressing the jewel at the top, cool swirly things cause the rewind button to be pressed. Thinking that this would be the proof needed to clear his name he could show this to his uncle proving that that this was the reason that the attack on Alamut happened and the weapons were planted to fool the Persians. Tamina who is the guardian of the knife is constantly lifting it from him so that she might bring it to sanctuary where it would be safe from evil doers like Dick Cheney… I mean Dastan’s uncle.

FINAL THOUGHT It was formulaic and fluffy but I have an undeniable urge to watch it again. Prince of Persia, I just can’t quit you.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World can be summed up in one word; Hipster. Whether you love hipsters, hate hipsters, are a hipster or have no clue what a hipster is, one thing is obvious; this movie rocked… or whatever. Scott Pilgrim was created first as a graphic novel which is the neck beard way of saying “comic book” for grown-ups by Canadian Cartoonist Brian Lee O’Malley. Never understanding the concept of comic books (words or pictures people, you can’t have both!) I knew squat about the story but that was unnecessary as I only needed a basic knowledge of Old School video games, Rock and Hipsters and have at least one working eye.

PLOT The plot is simple, Boy likes girl, girl has seven evil exes, boy fights evil exes and how much do you want to bet that someone with a PBR tattoo is thinking “I am totally going to start my own League of Evil Exes.”?

We meet our protagonist Scott Pilgrim Played by Michael Cera who is basically playing Michael Cera, as he is defending his new 17 year old high school girl friend to his fellow Sex Bob-omb band mates (yes, named after the adorable little bomb in Mario Bros.) Ah the flush of new love and an overage hipster with his Asian underage girlfriend. Anyway, Knives Chau, other than having the best name, becomes quickly wrapped up in the glow of older-in-a-band-boyfriend and is instantly Sex Bob-omb’s first and biggest fan. All is working well for our couple until Scott has a dream about a pink haired beauty in rollerblades. Things get complicated for Scott when he discovers that this dream girl is one Ramona Flowers and once he meets her he is immediately smitten… oh poor Knives.

Ramona is perfect for our Scott who is now faced with the task of dumping a high schooler and after “skimming” over an email from one of Ramona’s evil exes that he will have to defeat them in order to get to Ramona or something. The first confrontation occurs at the Battle of the Bands when Mathew Patel arrives to little fan-fair as Scott deleted the email after being to bored to finish reading it but miracle of miracles, a fight ensues and for a waif of a guy Scott turns on his inner Ryu and kicks ass. Adorably with each defeat he earns points and coins ala Mario.

The brilliance of the Evil Exes is that each one is a caricature of someone considered “really cool”. We have the action star/skateboard champ played by the Human Torch. And who knew being a vegan gives you super powers? We’ll our third evil ex did, hey, didn’t he play Superman? Followed by her “curious” phase when she dated a lady followed by two Asian DJ’s and finally, the one that she could never really have.

FINAL THOUGHT This movie is clearly for the younger/Gen-X crowed as everything would be lost on a baby boomer. Scott Pilgrim was a feast, with its nostalgic charm, remarkable action sequences and the magical dialogue the viewer will most certainly see themselves or someone they know in one of these many characters. I am pretty sure that I was Julie Powers, the one with the censored potty mouth.