I don't know why I keep writing movie reviews, but I just ended up on IMDB somehow and thus remembered that I recently saw Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. And then I felt a rant coming on.

One of the first things I noticed about this movie was that few of the actors looked like they could actually be from Persia. Now, I realise that it might not be so easy to assemble an entire cast made up of only Middle Eastern actors who all happen to speak fluent English (although I bet it's possible), so I decided to ignore anyone who wasn't a main character. The Prince himself stuck out the most, but I assumed it was intentional - I kept waiting for the moment when somebody would finally mention that he was from somewhere else. Well, nope. Turns out it was more of a bug than a feature. Come on, Hollywood, are you trying to confuse your viewers?!

I could point out that it's racist to work almost exclusively with white actors when the film is clearly about Persians, but I can't even get past the confusion. If something looks like a plot point, then I expect it to be a plot point. If there's a redhead in an all-brunette family, chances are we'll prepare ourselves for some sort of adoption storyline, no? Admittedly, in this case the rest of the "family" didn't have much in common, either. I lost hope soon enough.

The next thing I noticed was that Gemma Arterton was in it. I remembered her from Clash of the Titans, where she had first caught my attention by being unbelievably pretty, and then started to get on my nerves a bit. I can't say why, I'm really bad with these things. Something about her facial expressions just bugged me. However, guess what? In this movie she sort of played exactly the same role! Attractive female lead with hidden superpowers who turns out to be surprisingly good with a sword! Woo! I wonder if she noticed that she had to do the same thing twice in a row??

And then there was the Stereotypical Black Tribesman Who's Really Good At Throwing Knives. Again, I can only say: Come on, Hollywood. Don't you think we'll notice if you keep reusing tropes? I'm actually trying to figure out if there's a name for this on tv tropes. There should be. I can't be imagining that I've seen it before.

Blegh. And I'm not even sure if the ending made sense. It kind of looked as if what happened was exactly the thing that someone had earlier said wasn't possible, but I may have misunderstood something there.