Movie makers love colons. Both the punctuation marks, and the piece of anatomy from which they can pull new ideas ("There's this game my nephew loves. Let's destroy it forever" - see: Doom). Yes, it's based on a video game. That should tell you a lot right there. What's it's telling you, though, is wrong. This is actually a good movie. Before I start though, let me address the people who're fans of the game: THIS IS NOT THE GAME. The game has a number of hours to explore the plot, character development, humor, intricacies, and what-not. Also, it doesn't have female companion.
The movie, however, has about two hours to get across the point of the video game, which is this: Parkour is really, really old. No, wait, it's that nifty daggers are pretty cool. Um, alright, I haven't played the game, so I don't actually know what the point of it is, but the movie is pretty good.
From what I read beforehand, though, it sounded pretty bad. Critics had said that the action was generic, so I was a little wary. The first action sequence has a 12-year old versus some soldiers, and it was pretty generic ("Hey look. He jumped from one roof to another. Parkour!" No, just ... no) so I was getting worried. But then the movie jumped forwards 10 years, and suddenly Jake Gyllenhaal is scaling the wall of a holy city using ... innovative ... means. The invasion of the city is actually pretty well done. It focuses on a few characters, so we don't get a thousand tiny people in the frame waving swords at each other. Jake's stuntman does some impressive acrobatics, and he winds up with a glass-handled dagger. It has a button and it's filled with sand. Gee, I wonder if that will come up later?
After getting framed for the king's death, he and the princess of the now-conquered city go on the lam, and separate, and rejoin, and argue, and bicker. It's all very well done from each person's perspective. I didn't have to ask why they were doing something, because nothing they did was out of character (My biggest complaint from the Star Wars prequels was this. They never really answered the 'why' of it. Why did Anakin turn to the dark side? Why is he such a whiny emo kid? Why don't Sith just cause brain aneurisms or strokes in their enemies? Oh wait, now I've ruined Star Wars for everyone).
Also, they broke with the "Two hours of build-up" model, and added acrobatic action scenes throughout the movie (Kudos to the makers for using that aspect of the game instead of generic stabbity-stab moves they could've used). I thought the action was anything but bland, so now I'm kind of wondering what movie the critics saw.
Anyway, everything is finally resolved by a Deus Ex Machina that's actually explained (does that even make sense?), so everyone goes home happy. Well, not everyone, but you'll find out who if you watch the movie.
There's also a lot of humor in it (probably more than the game), most of it provided by Alfred Molina, whom I did not recognize until 10 minutes of his screen time had passed. There's also another scene with some vipers that may leave you thinking "With sharp, pointy teeth" and other such Monty Python lines running through your head. Yes, there are a few snakes, starting about halfway through. If you share that phobia with Indiana Jones, you may want to skip it. You'll just be missing out on a really fun movie. Two thumbs way up.
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