Prince of Persia is the latest victim in a long list of Hollywood studio’s attempts to cash in on successful videogame franchises. When the game made the transition to Xbox and brought with it updated 3D graphics it felt like a second GTA3, opening up new avenues of gameplay. Unfortunately the film version feels more than content to simply rest on the games laurels.

The film itself features a healthy blend of action and suspense, but never enough that you can escape thinking about how much better the game was to play. Watching Jake Gyllenhaal freerun in a crowded market just cannot recreate the feeling of doing it yourself. And the times when it almost feels like a cutscene from the game seem more like a Uwe Boll after-thought than a genuinely engaging cinematic technique.

The locations themselves are beautifully recreated, the fight scenes often furious and well shot but all of that is let down by the acting. From some of the most cliched and predictable characters to the downright awful accents, it’s hard to grin and bear sitting through nearly two hours of drudgery. Attempts at adding a dash of humour to the cast come off as incredibly cheesy, but if the film were to have taken itself more seriously it would have scored much lower.

This is definitely only one for those who either enjoy mindless adaptations and shallow plots or who are die-hard fans of the series. Unfortunately it looks like the poor narrative has bled through into a tie-in game as well. Seriously, a game based on a film based on a game?

Rating: 6/10