This weekend, I saw Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time. It was exactly as good as people have said, which means it was a complete wreck.

The saddest thing is, even if you get over the whitewashed casting, and the nonsense plot, and the laborious action scenes (save the first big one during the city raid, which was genuinely exciting), there’s still nothing there. It’s all so calculated and flat and recycled.

The other saddest thing is watching this cast try to sell what they had to know was a total dog. Richard Coyle managed to do a lot in his three minutes of screen time, and Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton were trying SO HARD, but it was just never going to happen. I’d like to see them in something else. (Particularly in something else that is not the sequel to this movie. Ever.)

Thing I can’t find photo proof of but which is totally true: the Alamut CGI looks exactly like Mont-Saint-Michel.

Not sure why, but we’ll go with it! (This was said a lot during pre-production, I expect.)

Check out the whole thing over here.