Rewind.

Let me preface this by saying that I am a big fan of the trilogy Prince of Persia games, consisting of Sands of Time, Warrior Within, and The Two Thrones. It was not something instant but developed over time, so when I heard they were doing a Prince of Persia movie, I hoped that they would adapt the story of these three games to the big screen. There were some strong elements of those three games in the movie, but as itself, this movie stood alone. So did that mean I didn't like the movie, no not at all. In fact I enjoyed it quite a bit. It seems like I've been hearing nothing but negative opinions about this movie since it was first announced, but I for one have been eagerly awaiting this movie. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was a fun adventure that I thought played out very well. There's my two cents.

I saw the beggars, but where were the thieves?

Tonight I took in the new Robin Hood film and I have two major opinions about it. First off while I was sitting there watching it, about halfway through, I thought to myself that this was cool but it wasn't really a Robin Hood movie. Yeah there was a little bit of archery and thievery in the woods, but nothing like you'd certainly expect. I was digging what I was watching, but I couldn't wrap my head around the whole direction this movie was going in. So while I did like it, the movie wasn't quite what I was expecting out of a movie about the outlaw of Sherwood Forest. Needless to say, I needed to be patient. I liked that. This movie didn't hand over what you were expecting, and I can get behind that. It's not always an approach that works with movies, but this one pulled it off for me.

Imagine if you will...

Even though it came out a little while ago, I didn't get to see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus until I bought it on DVD a couple of nights ago. I thought that I should give my two cents on it, however, because it really deserves the attention. The shadow looming over this movie is that it had the misfortune of being the movie Heath Ledger was working on when he passed on a couple of years back, before it was completed. Terry Gilliam, the brains behind the movie, was reportedly not sure whether he wanted to finish the movie without Ledger, but thank goodness he did, for I found the movie to be outstanding. The story is a little tweaked, bizarre, and in a word very-original. It's a twisted tale about Doctor Panassus who makes a bet with the Devil (or should I say a man called Mr. Nick), and then another bet, and another, and so on and so on, yet he doesn't seem to learn from one bad decision to the next. Now living on the outskirts of society as a kind of wandering performer with his daughter, his conscious, and another guy, Doctor Parnassus is joined by a stranger with secrets of his own and those secrets just might prove his salvation or his eternal damnation. That's just the surface, and there is a lot more to the story than that, but I don't want to give too much away. All in all I thought it was a great movie and well worth viewing.

Two Irons in the Fire.

Sat in on a midnight screening of Iron Man 2 last night and I have some mixed feelings on it. Don't get me wrong, it was a good show, but I had a couple of "iffy" feelings about it, so I'll go down the list. The Good: Robert Downy Junior, but it kind of seemed like the cool factor he had going in 1 was knocked down a peg here and I can't put my finger on just why that is. Sam Jackson with a larger part and the eye patch, need I say more? Scarlett Johansson...nice. And the Favreau boxing bit was classic. The Bad: Too many AC/CD songs, they could have used much better music than that. Sam Rockwell (who I like as an actor) didn't pull off bad or greedy to me and just seemed to be in the way. The Ugly: Micky Rourke, the dude bugs, which I guess is good for the villain, but I kind of wanted to puke a little bit whenever he was on screen. The verdict, I liked it, but only just. Maybe my expectations were too high and it will take another viewing to really warm up to it.

To Lose or not to lose.

Yet again I found myself watching another film based on a comic book last night, The Losers. Basically a soldier of fortune movie, reminiscent of the A-Team, the movie was an adventuresome ride. It wasn't too deep, but there were a couple of twists and turns there, and a lot of funny one liners. So if you're looking for a good movie that you don't have to invest too much brain power to watch, I'd recommend it. I have to warn you, you won't be able to get the Journey song Don't Stop Believing out of your head after you watch it though.