X-Men: First Class is a film that works on many levels. In some aspects, it might be the best X-film since X2: X-Men United (which isn’t saying much, I know). There are a lot of things they get right in the film and the stuff they get wrong aren’t fatal.

The film details not only the first class of mutant students trained by Professor Xavier (James McAvoy), but also the first meeting, eventually friendship, and breaking apart of Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, a.k.a. Magneto (Michael Fassbender).

Set during the early 1960s when the Cold War was at its height and mutants were just discovering there were others out them like themselves, a mutant named Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) wants to jump start a nuclear war to rid the world of all those pesky humans so mutants like him can take over. He comes up with a great idea to do this–start the Cuban Missile Crisis. Xavier, who believes in peaceful coexistence with humans, wants to stop him. Lehnsherr, who doesn’t necessarily disagree with Shaw’s motives, wants him dead for an entirely different reason.

The main focus is the Xavier and Magneto storyline. It gets most of the attention and some fine acting from both McAvoy and Fassbender. Where the film excels is presenting the characters and the ideologies in a multidimensional light. You want  for Lehnsherr to get his vengeance but yet again are put off by his methods. Xavier’s longing for belonging is seen as admirable but also a bit demeaning to those mutants that do not really fit in. Neither point of view is presented as being wholly wrong or totally right. There are flaws and assets to both sides.

Mystique gets more screen time in this film than she has been in other installments, and, as played by Jennifer Lawrence, is more well rounded than the lackey she is presented as in the other films. Lawrence portrays Mystique as a woman whose blue skin has irreparably damaged her self esteem. So, she goes looking for this esteem in the men she meets, be it her adoptive brother (yes, you read that right) Xavier, the geeky Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) or, finally, Lehnsherr. Credit to Lawrence to bringing out the vulnerability in the character and making it believable.

Bacon hams it up just enough as Shaw to make his outlandish, Bond-worthy threat believable. January Jones as Emma Frost, however, performs her part as if she was a sorority sister with a headache. Emma Frost is one of the more complex and interesting characters in the comics, but you’d never know it from Jones’ somnambulistic performance. As for the rest of the cast, the mutants on the side of good are given enough challenges to overcome to have mini-character arcs but aren’t fleshed out much further, and the evil mutants follow in the long tradition of the franchise as being lackeys, nothing more, nothing less.

The film also features a lot of humor, a cameo or two, and a satisfying chunk of action to keep you entertained.

But all in all, the film is a good entry into the franchise. You will be left with questions afterwards about certain contradictions this film bring up in relation to the other films (most notably, how could there be a late 20s/early 30s Emma Frost here AND a teenage Emma Frost in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which is set decades later). But still, X-fans will have a satisfying franchise to follow until the present day  version of the mythos gets its act back together.

It’s a hard row for a remake to hoe. People are hypercritical about your film before even the first reel is unspooled. It’s a case of dealing with resentment because the film was remade at all, added to the automatic, albeit not entirely fair, comparisons to the original film.

This wasn’t a problem for me with Arthur. The original film was far enough removed in my memory that the distance allowed me to view the film out of fresh eyes. However, two other problems were more of a concern–my general dislike of Russell Brand as an actor and my general malaise towards Jennifer Garner as an actress. He seems like a smug, yet crude shock comic in other roles, and she is, well, just there in a lot of things I’ve seen her in.

That being said, both overcome my preconceived notions about them and deliver great performances in an above average remake.

Arthur Bach (Brand) is the male equivalent of the Paris Hilton/Kim Kardashian type of celebutante. He is constantly drunk, constantly partying, and constantly getting in trouble with the law. This serves as an embarrassment for mom Vivian (Geraldine James), who finds all investors in the family business scared off by Arthur’s antics. She gives him an ultimatum–marry former flame Susan Johnson (Garner) or be cut off from his multimillion dollar inheritance. Complicating matters a great deal is that Arthur takes a fancy to fellow free spirit and illegal Grand Central Station tour guide Naomi (Greta Gerwig).

Brand plays Arthur as a man-child who is naive, yet smart, sarcastic, yet romantic. He is pitch perfect in the role, charming and witty while exhibiting the most self-destructive behavior imaginable. His Arthur is immediately likable and exasperating at the same time, yet someone who you root for throughout the film.

Helen Mirren delivers the her standard great performance as the acerbic Hobson, now Arthur’s nanny who has kept her job well into adulthood. And Gerwig is absolutely charming (as she has to be) as Naomi. Garner instills the her role as the shrewish harridan with notes of grace and humanity. She has reasons for the way she behaves, and that make her role more believable.

And that’s one of the things that the film has going for it. Every character is fully realized. Enough is revealed about their pasts that you can see how and why they became the people in the film. These aren’t caricatures, these are fully formed people.

There are gags aplenty, ranging all the way from broad slapstick to jaunty one-liners and witty rejointers. Each works. There are plenty of laugh-out loud moments here, if you are open to them.

So, all in all, great perfomances and better than average writing come together to make a great remake that stands on its own.

Whenever I sit down to watch a Marko Zaror movie, I invariably find myself wondering why he doesn’t have more of a fan following in the US. He’s a top martial artist, has a strong screen presence and is a much better actor than the action film genre generally requires. And yet the Chilean star continues to find an American audience elusive.

Unfortunately, Zaror’s latest, Mandrill, is probably not going to do much to enhance his reputation here in the States. It is not the actor’s best collaboration with director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza. That would be 2006′s Kiltro. But Mandrill still manages to be an entertaining 90 minutes of martial arts action.

Mandrill (Zaror) is a stone cold killer, one of the best assassins for hire in the business. And as he plies his trade, he is always on the lookout for the one-eyed man known only as The Cyclops, who killed his parents years ago when he was a boy. When he is offered a contract on the Cyclops’s life, Mandrill manages to track down his daughter, the lovely Dominique, who is rumored to be the only one who knows where her father is hiding. But as he attempts to seduce Cyclops’s location out of Dominique, mandrill doesn’t count on falling in love with her.

Although the plot description sounds like the stuff of serious drama, the film never forgets that it is a martial arts movie first and foremost, serving up plenty of fight sequences. Acting as his own fight coordinator, as he has done for several of his previous films, Zaror manages to highlight his own abilities while never making it look as if his character is having too easy of a time dispatching his opponents.

Unfortunately for the film, Espinoza’s direction of the fight sequences is maddeningly inconsistent. There are several times when the camera circles Zaror and an opponent, searching for an interesting angle but seldom finding it. And then things will turn on a dime and Espinoza will show us exactly what we need in an action sequence, showing us the flow of the battle, the back and forth of the combatants and even momentarily slowing things down to showcase a particular instance of Zaror’s athleticism.

To say that Mandrill wears its James Bond influence on its sleeve would be a gross understatement. From his suave way with the ladies, one doesn’t have to sit through the film’s closing credits’ acknowledgement of thanks to the various actors who have played the British secret agent with a license to kill to see how their performances have informed Zaror’s approach to his role here. The film’s opening sequence, which shows off Mandrill’s skills, but which is inconsequential to the main plot, is similar to how the Bond films start off, while the casino location and some emotional beats are directly lifted from 2006′s Casino Royale. Even the soundtrack music owes a debt of gratitude, and perhaps a royalty payment, to composer John Barry’s classic scores for the series.

Although Black Swan is set in the world of ballet, don’t expect anything akin to other ballet films like the classic The Red Slippers. If anything, director Darren Aronofsky’s new film is a psychological thriller with more than a small debt to Shakespeare’s Hamlet in its depiction of a dancer’s slow, progressive psychotic break from reality. It is also one of the best films of the year.

Nina (Natalie Portman) is a dancer with a prestigious Manhattan ballet troupe. When the company plans to mount Tchaikovsky’s Black Swan, Nina auditions for the lead but is told that while her technical efficiency is perfect for the part of the White Swan, her reserved nature is holding her back from being able to effectively dance the part of the Black Swan.

Surprisingly, though, she is given the part and the company’s director Thomas (Vincent Cassel) begins the process of rehearsing her for the performance and trying to get her to feel more passion as she dances. During rehearsals, Nina befriends a new dancer to the company, Lily (Mila Kunis), who is as free spirited as Nina is reserved. But as the stress of preparing for the performance and the pressure put on her by her mother (Barbara Hershey), who had given up her own dreams of being a ballerina to have Nina, begins to mount, Nina appears to slowly loose her grip on reality.

Unlike other backstage films such as Showgirls or Burlesque, Black Swan doesn’t present its subjects as jealous, ambitious shrews. Instead, Arronofsky’s plumbs their depths, searching for the reasons that drive them as artists and exploring how that drive can damage them.

Black Swan makes for an interesting follow up to Aronofsky’s last feature, The Wrestler. While both films feature lead characters whose livelihood is dependent on their own physical prowess, they are at opposite ends of the spectrum from each other as far as respectability is concerned. And while Mickey Rourke’s character in The Wrestler was struggling to define himself outside of the wrestling ring, Portman’s character is trying to lose her identity and submerse herself in the roles of the White and Black Swans.

With Black Swan, Aronofsky once again demonstrates why he is one of the best directors working today as his camera moves lithely through each scene as if it were another dancer in the ballet company. His use of visual cues as to Nina’s deteriorating mental state is often subtle and probably demanding of repeated viewings in order to get everything he has happening in his frame. Black Swan is not a film to be watched casually. It is also a film that will spark lots of discussion and debate over certain sequences thanks to the ambiguity that Aronofsky imbues the proceedings with.

I also don’t want to go too much into the film, as I think that its mysteries will play out best to the uninitiated. In fact, I think I may have said too much already. Black Swan is set to open later this fall and even in the midst of a season full of Academy Award nominee hopefuls, it is a standout film.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World might just be the best adaptation of a comic book that you have ever seen. It captures the flashy imagery of the original medium, right down to the speed lines and boldly lettered sound effects. And as an adaptation of this particular comic book series, it is also pretty darn good.

The Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series is a frenetic mix of manga, garage rock, and video games. It is a patchwork ode to all of these geek worthy things, and, as such it is almost impossible to adapt correctly. Edgar Wright has.

He has captured O’Malley’s vision perfectly, translating the drawings on paper into images  on the screen in a way that appears so natural and so right that it seems almost mystical.

I sat in the theater and couldn’t imagine anyone except Wright directing the film. Wright, while showing trademark flashes of his own style (the quick jump cut make a number of appearances), allows the source material to breathe. You kept looking forward to how he was going to adapt the individual plot elements from the comic for the screen. Of course, this has the side effect of letting you know what was added to the film and what parts of the original graphic novel didn’t make it in.

For as much as a visual masterpiece that the film is, it is also holds to how the old comedy maxim goes–if you buy the premise, then you buy the bit.

If you are comic book fan, have ever played a video game to its conclusion, or followed a group of friends who had a band, then this film will be right up your alley. Other than that, your mileage may vary. There is a love story to hang onto, and a number of themes that could resonate with all audiences, but I can very well see some viewers getting lost in all the flash, frenzy and fury of the film.

The cast is superb from the top to the bottom, and each member is perfectly cast in their roles. Often times, they appear to have been drawn by O’Malley himself they are so exact in their presentation.

I do believe that the film should be seen, if only to witness the awesome visual onslaught. But be warned, it might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

One of the most popular programming track at the Philadelphia Film Festival has been the genre-specific Danger After Dark. This year, it has been spun-off into its own mini-festival. We’ll be presenting reviews from some its offerings over the next few days.

Some movie titles are allegorical. Some are poetic. And other titles are strictly descriptive. Big Tits Zombie 3D definitely falls into the last category. There is a cadre of pleasingly proportioned heroines. There are hordes of the shambling undead, driven by the taste for human flesh. And portions of the movie require the wearing of cardboard glasses with red and green plastic lenses. No truth in advertising laws broken here.

The plot, such as it is, is one of the standard variants to be found in zombie pictures. A clueless group of people find an old, mystical tome, read aloud from it and inadvertently bring the dead back to life with a cranial culinary craving. In this case, the clueless group is a quintet of strippers working in a club in a rural Japanese town. The mystical tome is discovered when the bored girls stumble across a hidden underground passage that stretches from their dressing room to the basement of a spooky condemned health spa across the street. Of course, the spa has a suitable sinister background – the owner supposedly killed his family and himself when the business went belly up. The owner was something of an occultist too, with a vast collection of rare books, including the dusty leather bound volume – which of course one of the strippers easily identifies – that sets the plot into high gear.

Although the movie gives a few hints that it is about to bound off into some weird spaghetti western inspired territory, it never actually does. Instead, it shows a strong influence from Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy. It strives for the same blend of comedy and horror and contains several subtle nods to Raimi’s cult classics and a few overt ones, most obvious being the flying eyeball gag lifted wholesale from Evil Dead 2. Director Takao Nakano a does manage some imaginative flourishes of his own, the funniest of which can be summed up in two words – zombie sushi. Another inspired touch is a denizen from Hell turning up with an attitude more fitting of a bored civil servant than demonic envoy.

Those showing up just for the titillation (pun unavoidable) may find themselves disappointed, as there are only two scenes where any of the characters live up to their profession and lose their tops, and both are over rather quickly. Strangely enough, neither of them are when the girls are performing. Gore fans may face similar disappointment as much of the blood spray is rather unconvincingly computer generated. However, there is one scene where the interests of these two groups intersect, with results that should please both. The 3D use in the film is sporadic and seemingly randomly applied. Some action and horror scenes get the 3D treatment while others don’t. Maddeningly, there many scenes presented in 2D that look as if they may have been considered for 3D but didn’t get it for some reason. Unfortunately, Nakano’s only really effectively uses the 3D in a couple of spots.

But critiques against the film don’t matter much. This movie isn’t Citizen Kane. It isn’t even the Citizen Kane of zombie films. What it is, is a fun and goofy way to spend some time, preferably with a group of similarly mind-set friends.

The summer movie season is usually the time for big dumb brainless fun and there is nothing wrong with that. But as director Christopher Nolan has reminded us with his two Batman films, the blockbuster doesn’t have to be just that. It can have emotional depth and a smart and layered text. Nolan ramps that up this summer with the brain-twisting brilliance of Inception, which could best be described as the best film adaption of a novel that Philip K. Dick should have written but didn’t.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo diCaprio) is what could best be described as an industrial spy. He and his group are hired by powerful and rich businessmen to infiltrate their rivals for key pieces of information. However, they do not do this through computer hacking or even old fashioned breaking and entering. Cobb and his group are known as extractors. They enter their target’s dreams and manipulate the subject in to giving up the desired secret.

Nolan bravely begins the film in the middle of one of these missions and holds back on spelling out exactly what is going on for almost a half-hour. This could conceivably alienate and confuse some, but Nolan doesn’t leave his audience entirely helpless. There is enough information available to follow the action and decode what is happening and Nolan trusts that his audience is smart enough to figure it out. And by engaging their brains to actively follow the onscreen action rather than passively letting it wash over them, Nolan is prepping the audience for the many twists and turns he will be putting the concept through later in the film. A little later, Nolan offers a second reason through Cobb for this mise en scene when the character explains to new recruit Ariadne (Ellen Page) the nature of how one experiences a dream and how you don’t necessarily realize that you are dreaming. Again, a warning to the audience for what is to come.

Cobb and his crew find themselves in a quandary when Saito (Ken Watanabe), a former target of theirs, wishes to hire them for a job of his own. Instead of just extracting information from Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy), the son of a recently deceased business rival, they are asked to implant in him the idea of breaking up his father’s company which he has inherited into smaller groups that won’t be as competitive with Saito’s business. Cobb’s associates, lead by Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), think that it can’t be done. But Cobb is strangely adamant that it can. And as Cobb begins to train newcomer to the group Ariadne, she slowly begins to why he feels it can be done. And that reason could endanger the mission and the group.

Characters interacting with each other in a shared dream is not a new idea in movies. We saw it back in the 1980s with Dreamscape while the Wachowski Brothers’ Matrix trilogy is pretty much built on the concept’s foundation. But Nolan takes the idea and moves in a direction that recalls another film – The Sting. As Cobb and his crew descend in to Fischer’s dreams, they must use a number of tricks and subterfuges layered on top of one another to gain his trust and to be able to implant the suggestion. It’s a complicated confidence game they are running. However, when those carefully laid plans hit an unforeseen snag and start to unravel in the way these things often do, they are forced to think on their feet and improvise solutions. It’s during this segment of the film that many members of Cobb’s group, and the actors who play them, get a moment or two to shine and prove that they are not just dispensable sidekicks.

Interestingly, Nolan takes the hoary old horror movie cliche of a dream-within-a-dream and builds the crux of the movie on it. His dreamscapes follow a certain logic, but never get too random and weird. Characters have the ability to create and move through M. C. Esher-like geometries, but the unreality would alert the target that something is wrong and ruin Cobb’s chances of success. Have you ever been asleep and dreamed of a specific song only to wake right up and hear it playing on a radio? Nolan allows those kinds of influences to play an important impact on the dream landscapes and on the plot.

But the movie isn’t all just tricky characters moving through a complicated, if inspired, plot. DiCaprio’s Cobb is as much a mystery to be solved as is the mission to implant an idea in Fischer’s mind is a task to be accomplished. It moves through some tough places, playing to DiCaprio’s strengths. But it all dovetails nicely with the main plot in an ending that will have audiences debating and discussing for years.

No one ever said living as a middle-aged adult was easy. There is the constant state of worry about job stability, Social Security, maintaining the ‘excess around the middle,’ irritable mood-swings, being upstaged by a younger super-villain… wai-, what? Hmm, maybe not that last one; but then most middle-aged adults aren’t Gru.

You see, Gru (Steve Carrell) would really like to be the world’s most nefarious super-villain but his efforts have been less than favorable. Sure, he may have successfully stolen a Times Square JumboTron and the Statue of Liberty (no, the other one), but he has little to show for it. To add insult to injury, he’s just found out that one of the ancient Egyptian pyramids has been swiped, and he had absolutely nothing to do with it. Gru’s been outclassed by the new “younger” villain on the block, Vector (Jason Segel). Under these circumstances, a typical middle-ager would probably hang it up and start looking for a new line of work. But not Gru. He’s not ready to let go of the night-vision goggles and blowtorch that easily. Nope, Gru’s got one more diabolical plan up his sleeve and oh, it’s a doozy. He’s going to steal the MOON!

To get the job done right, he’s got to steal a shrink ray with the help of his bumbling old assistant Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand, in a well-disguised voice) who’s hard of hearing, and tends to invent some less than menacing weapons. That plan was easy, but then he loses the ray to his nemesis. How can Gru get it back? He’s going to exploit innocent children for his personal good! Three sweet, adorable cookie sellers will do the trick. Of course, there’s a catch: these three girls – Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier) and the uber-cute, fuzzy unicorn loving Agnes (Elsie Fisher) – are orphans. For the plan to work, Gru must adopt the kiddies, get the shrink ray back from Vector and then, steal the moon – all without losing his dastardly façade and becoming a respectable father figure.

Though in scope and context, it might not exactly match up to Pixar standards, Despicable Me does well as a reputable first attempt from Universal’s fledgling computer animation department. The script is thankfully devoid of overused pop-culture references and toilet humor (well, there is that one joke), instead relying on well-placed comedic timing while offering much of its humor visually. Co-directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud emphasize much of that with Gru’s “minions”. They’re little yellow pill-shaped fellas who do the hard work of carrying out Gru’s plans, and offer plenty of opportunity for laughs. However, there are extensive beats in which not a word is spoken and laughs are unfettered with the simple act of a popped balloon or a sloppily executed act of sabotage. Craftily laden with daft, yet silent cat and mouse games, Despicable Me even invokes the smart slapstick hilarity of old Mad magazine Spy vs. Spy strips. The directors also created a smart laughable contrast of old vs. new, from Gru’s blackened Addam’s Family-esque house and his cumbersome stainless steel vehicles, to Vector’s space-age villain lair and his fancy, sleek jet-set styled machines.

If so much is pleasantly happening visually, why then did the animators resort to presenting Gru’s adventures in 3D? The heavily relied upon stunt adds more depth and texture to the film. From the gimmicky first-person POV rollercoaster ride to the vastness of Gru’s underground lair, the use of 3D is precise, never showy. True 3D aficionados may want to stick around during the credits for some hilarious play on the novelty.

As a middle aged adult, this reviewer tends to get cranky with the burgeoning amount of sloppily laid-out animated stories. On the contrary, this movie is pleasingly off-kilter. Amidst the entire smart, if not whimsical visual play, Despicable Me possesses a lovable conscience, revealing that even a cold, dastardly super-villainous, middle-aged heart can grow warm if given the right conditions.

Aldous Snow is in decline.

Once of the biggest hardest partying rock stars on the planet, his seven year stint of being clean and sober has come to a crashing end when his latest album “African Child” an attempt at being socially conscious is labeled by critics as being “the worst thing to happen to Africa since apartheid.”

But Snow has at least one loyal fan in Aaron (Jonah Hill), a low level functionary at Snow’s record label, who suggests to his boss a concert commemorating a legendary performance of Snow’s at Los Angeles’ Greek Theater a decade earlier as a way to boost revenues. Label head Sergio (Sean Coombs) likes the idea so much that he assigns Aaron the task of escorting Snow from his home in London to the LA venue. But what sounds like a dream assignment quickly gets out of hand as Snow’s hard partying ways aren’t very conducive to keep a strict travel schedule and also fairly seductive to the straight-laced Aaron.

Hill and Brand are likable enough screen personas and it is much to their credit that the movie is as enjoyable and watchable as it is. Brand deserves a special commendation for keeping us interested in his character, even after he gives Aaron a thoroughly hateful and spiteful dressing down in a Las Vegas hotel room. It’s an ugly turn for the character and one where the audience could have turned on him easily.

Brand and Hill’s chemistry helps move the film through some sequences that otherwise feel off in terms of character motivation. There are several moments when it seems as if characters are making decisions based more on the needs of moving the story to a certain point or to start a comedy set piece rather than out of their character’s nature.

However, there is one sequence that not even Hill and Brand can salvage. It comes towards the end of the film when Aldous tries to help repair Aaron and his girlfriend’s broken relationship. A suggestion is made and implemented. While it is supposed to be awkward and uncomfortable for those involved, it is even more uncomfortable for the audience to watch, to the point of being humorless and off-putting. It is a fatal misstep from which the movie never really recovers.

That’s not to say that the movie doesn’t contain plenty of good moments and I would be lying if I said that I didn’t laugh several times through its length. The rock and pop songs that Aldous and his ex-wife sing, along with their attendant videos, are hilariously more entendre than double entendre. Sean Combs turns in a surprisingly funny performance as the intense record company exec and the excesses we imagine that pop stars indulge in are sent up in a hilarious Mulligan’s Stew of narcotics called a “Jeffrey.”

While Get Him To The Greek starts off strong, it ultimately comes off as a poorly organized road trip. It invariably loses its way, leaving one more than just a bit worn out by the time its destination is reached.

Given their rather poor track record, I would guess that saying Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time is a pretty good film adaptation of a video game would be damning it with the faintest of praise. I suppose I could say that it is a perfectly adequate summer movie if your criteria is to have something to point your eyeballs at for two hours while you munch your popcorn. That may not be much better, but while entertaining in the moment, Prince Of Persia is a trifle that evaporates with the end credits, leaving one with the feeling that the have just spent some time watching something vaguely movie-ish without being able to recall many salient details.

Things start out promisingly enough. A voiced-over prologue fills in the background of 8-year-old street urchin Dastan, who, after apparently spontaneously inventing parkour, captures the eye of the Persian Kingdom’s kindly ruler Sharaman (Ronald Pickup), who adopts him, taking him to the palace to be raised alongside his own two sons. Fifteen years later and Dastan has grown up in to a buff Jake Gyllenhaal. The three brothers are riding out at the head of the Persian army, when word arrives that the normally peaceful city of Alamut is secretly making weapons for Persia’s enemies. The King’s brother Nizam (Ben Kingsley) presses for an attack on the city and Dastan’s brothers agree.

It is here where the movie is at its best, as Dastan and the ragtag group of soldiers under his command disobey orders and storm a side entrance to the fortified city. Director Mike Newell does a good job of laying out the geography of the town and the attack by the Persian forces. The action is well-staged and edited, making for an exhilarating sequence. Newell also cuts back and forth between the concerns of the city’s rulers over protecting a mystical dagger from the invading hordes.

It doesn’t take much of a leap to conclude that Nizam is after the dagger and faked the evidence of weapon manufacture. In a series of obviously constructed plot moments in the aftermath of the battle, Dastan comes in to possession of the dagger, is framed for the death of his father who had come to claim the city and with the dagger’s protector Tamina (Gemma Arterton) flees into the desert with Nizam’s troops in hot pursuit.

What follows is some fairly standard adventure movie plotting. Dastan and Tamina argue at first, but slowly fall for each other. They encounter various dangers, meet the pre-requesite comic relief supporting character (played ably here by Alfred Molina) before heading back to the city to stop Nizam in a big CGI showdown. If this plot is inspired by the video game, than makers of the video game must have been influenced by The Thief Of Baghdad and the various Sinbad movies of the 50s and 60s.

Unfortunately, the film’s biggest problem is a fairly obvious one – the magic dagger. By pressing a jewel on the end of its hilt, the dagger’s possessor can move backwards in time to relive the last few minutes with hopefully a better outcome. As an adaptation of a videogame, it makes a certain meta-textual sense that the narrative comes with its own reset button. But with such a device rattling around the story, there is no way that one can be concerned with any of the character’s survival when their death can be so easily reversed.

So what does that leave us with to recommend? Gyllenhall’s faux-British accent isn’t too distracting. Arterton makes a better impression here than she did a few months ago in Clash Of The Titans, though I suspect that is the fault of the latter movie more so than a success of this one.