Prince Gyllenhaal

One of the things I've never quite understood about videogames turned movies is how you're supposed to play them.

But I miss Jake Gyllenhaal so here he is all acrobatic like in The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

More Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Info

I haven't yet read any internet opinions about this new trailer, so haven't a clue what the consensus is but if it's hugely negative, I'm here to say that that's just silly. This looks exactly like the other video games turned movies (Tomb Raider) or movies that seem like they're based on video games even when they're not (The Mummy... or wait, was that?). They're all marketed in this same bombastic way with loud music, "fun" bits and CGI heavy promises of spectacle. Though I can't remember offhand if most trailers for films of this genre spend this much time describing the plot (which I feel safe in assuming will turn out to be unneccesarily complicated and utterly inconsequential to whether or not the movie works)

I'm feeling weirdly defensive in advance... even though I don't think it looks very good.

Would you rather be buried in sand... or internet ridicule?

Most of what I read on the internet these days seems to have a touch of the anti-Gyllenhaal to it (be it involving Maggie or Jake) and I don't want to see another repeat of that weird collective sudden loathing that happened to Kirsten Dunst a few years back. I hate it when that happens. There's usually little in the way of real or defensible reasons why people turn against actors that vehemently. I find that it's often based on perceptions of their public persona rather than their work and/or it's about one movie which the actor in question wasn't suited for in some way. Then people get weirdly resistant to believing that the actor will be enjoyable in another context. Not liking Maggie Gyllenhaal because she was annoying in The Dark Knight, for example, is utterly self-defeating. You would end up depriving yourself of abundant fantastic performances. Anyway, it comes down to this: I am an unrepentant Gyllenhaalic. I've never cared whether actors are "in" or "out" only whether they have talent and whether they do things for me onscreen when I'm sitting in the dark watching them. Jake often does. So, for better or worse, I'll end up seeing this next summer.