This isn't a movie for everyone. A fairly large chunk of the movie watching public will dislike this, saying it is slow and long. But that's exactly why I was so captivated while watching this.

Essentially, this is an old school, intelligent, historically and politically-charged romp through Middle Ages England. The fight scenes, like Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven before it, are large and epic, but less so. Instead, this time around, most of the intrigue lies in the characters, the setting and the politics. Acting is excellent all around, and the filmmaking is methodical and precise (though do not expect anything avant-garde).

Basically, this is a classic Middle Ages film that will satisfy History buffs like myself, but bore anyone who has trouble dealing with politics and dialogue.

The danger with any story that includes a time-reversing mechanism is that you risk taking away all of the tension, because any character can just go back in time and get a do-over. Some narratives take advantage of that, and play on the diverging and alternating timelines (Back to the Future, for instance), but only one story in recent memory has ever actually decided to go for the brutal finality of erasing something you held dear, with no hope of ever getting it back. I speak, of course, of the Sands of Time video game. The entire game is spent skillfully building up one of the all-time best video game relationships, with witty dialogue, beautiful vistas and unique circumstances, and in the end the Prince has no choice but to erase all of it in order to save the world from destruction. It's quite a fascinating theme.

But of course, we're talking about the soulless movie cash-in, here, so none of that is even hinted at. In fact, the movie starts with some bullshit quote about how legend has it that some people are bound together through space and time, just so the two characters can conveniently live happily ever after even after the Prince goes back in time to kill the main bad guy before he has time to do anything. I just spoiled the ending , didn't I? Actually, no: the very second the time traveling mechanic is introduced, and the possibility of going back as much as one wants when in the chamber of time is described, everyone in the theatre knew right away what was going to happen. Predictability like this is ridiculously rampant, and every cliché under the sun seems to be included. Crazy comedy relief merchant? Check. Creepy black horsemen with snakes? Check. Doublecrossing brother? Check. Fragile but tough Princess? Check. Nice black guy? Dead.

Usually with a film like this, I'd now mention that despite all this, it's nonetheless entertaining. Not so. If the "From the Producers of Pirates of the Caribbean!" tagline caught your eye, don't expect to see any of the witty dialogue or creative fight scenes that made that series so entertaining. The romance seems to try to have the prince and the princess playfully tease each other, but it ends up feeling flat, tired and unfunny. And the action scenes... well, they're just people swinging at each other randomly for way too long, with some slow motion dagger throwing thrown in every now and then.

At this point, you might expect me to say that at least it's visually beautiful. Well, kind of. The visuals end up feeling like an inferior knockoff of 300, with the exception of some large and beautiful vistas, and 3 or 4 really cool time-travel shots. Still, despite the high production values and large amount of talent required for the visuals, it manages to end up looking uninspired, as if something's just a bit off the whole time.

Basically, this is a tragic waste of the enormous potential that the Sands of Time mythos held.

Ridiculously predictable, unfunny, soulless, formulaic, clichéd and uninteresting.

There's been a lot of complaining about how this film didn't up the ante on the first one, and about how there wasn't enough action, and I can't help but wonder what the hell these people are blabbing on about. The film I saw was badass from start to end, with just the right balance between action and character development, and the same perfect tone that I loved in Iron Man 1. While there are a ton of characters and events, it all fits perfectly together and builds up really nicely to the Avengers movie, while also giving Stark his "dark period" and organically introducing War Machine and Black Widow. While this didn't revolutionize the superhero genre or delve deeply into complex philosophical themes, it was basically the perfect badass comic book movie. If you wanted more action, go watch xXx or something, you psycho.

The main reason this doesn't get a 4 or 5 from me has to do with how it didn't live up to its potential at all. While some sequences were amazing, and while the environments and main game mechanics were all fine, the fact is that this never really seemed to achieve greatness.

One moment in particular really demonstrated this for me: a cutscene shows you setting off the alarm inside a building, and you then have a very very limited amount of time to run through a set of doors before they close. You have no time to take cover, yet you must shoot enemies who can kill you in two or three shots. The checkpoint is before the cutscene, and I had to redo this part about 10 or 15 times, over the course of a few days because the frustration was too much to bear. While there are no other such atrociously designed sections in the game, most of the second half is comprised of needlessly hard sections, that forgo the originality that was supposed to save the Splinter Cell series in exchange for uninspired government buildings and japanese-like gameplay design. Taking away all of the awesome new cover mechanics and throwing tons of enemies at you just struck me as a poor way to extend an already ridiculously short game. It's really quite frustrating, as some other sections are quite excellent, notably the one that takes place in a Carnival, and one that takes place at the Lincoln memorial.

As far as story is concerned, it's standard fare, though it is also very poorly explained, expecting you to memorize everyone's name and face after one brief mention, and expecting everyone to have completed the last Splinter Cell game. There are also so many twists that you just stop being surprised by any of them by the end. Though by then it doesn't really matter, since you're just half-heartedly rushing through the levels without bothering to hide, anyway, because all the fun has been sucked out of it.