StartingAllOver14

With the release of "Camp Rock" in 2008, Disney had found another franchise to milk alongside with "Hannah Montana" and "High School Musical"; a stereotypical movie about a regular teen chick with a regular teen problem, filled with catchy songs and some daily life vs. pop star struggles. However, the first "Camp Rock" was a movie which I genuinely enjoyed. While it's not a film of the lifetime, I found it to be sincere and quite likable. Just as most successful movie franchises, "Camp Rock" gets a sequel, but it's a well known term that most sequels aren't better than their predecessors – and unfortunately the highly promoted "Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam" is no exception and comes off as a mild disappointment.

With all consideration; "Camp Rock 2" isn't exactly bad; just a little disappointing. The film does have its cute and enjoyable moments, but comes across as less compelling as a whole. The main plot isn't exactly a misplaced choice from the screenwriters (a battle versus two camps), but while the first movie didn't exactly had a groundbreaking story, it had a more stronger, internal conflict; Mitchie's (Demi Lovato) conflict with Tess (Meaghan Martin) and her identity-struggle and Shane's (Joe Jonas) internal struggle of being a cold, inaccessible person because of his fear of being fooled by someone who wanted to take use his celebrity status. Besides, the script is less structured this time and jumps from a random musical sequence to another random musical sequence and the events feel less chronological (written by the not so cleverly Dan Berendsen, which has proved his lack of skills in several script).

The film wants to expand the screen time of the characters, but doesn't really take the time to develop them as they did in the first movie. The film gives more time to Shane's band members Nate (Nick Jonas) and Jason (Kevin Jonas). It's not strange that Kevin screen time gets expanded, since he's proved his comical ability and a charismatic presence in several Disney projects. But the subplot with Nate and his love interest Dana (Chloe Bridges) from the forbidden group "Camp Star" is just contrived, unnecessary and doesn't add anything to the plot. Another noteworthy notion is the appearance of Demi Lovato. Yes, this notion has been discussed before, but her appearance as Mitchie was more restrained and natural in the first movie. Now with her black hair, light tan and tons of makeup, she appears as a different character. No 'one shall blame Miss Lovato for her desire to change her appearance (after all, she's still in the puberty), but perhaps she could have waited to dye her hair after shooting the sequel? It seems like the director were more eager to turn this sequel into a "High School Musical" flick, with a more musical feel to the movie and having the characters suddenly break out into song and dancing to cheesy, choreographed dances. The tone and feel highly resembles the "HSM" sequel and the message is more kid-aimed and more kid friendly than in the first movie.

Okay, enough with the complaining; I did enjoy this movie to an extent. It has more kid friendly humor this time without being awkward, while at the same time, the tone is more mature as well. The film has several catchy songs, especially the excellent duet "Wouldn't Change a Thing" between Mitchie and Shane. The film introduces us to a few new characters, as the bragging and sexy Luke (Matthew Finley), Nate's love interest Dana, her cynical father who's the leader of Camp Star and even the youngest JoBro Frankie gets a cameo. The film has also its funny, sweet and sincere moments, has an unpredictable twist to the ending and a good moral.

So while "Camp Rock 2" fails to live up to its predecessor, it still makes a cute, harmless and watchable family flick. It's not a masterpiece and it's not intended to be one either, but a light TV flick which doesn't make any harm. Now let's see if Disney has intentions of making a third movie.

The video game genre isn't the most compelling genre to transfer into the big screen, considering mostly that most of the video games adaptations has turned out as mediocre movies. With "Prince of Persia", on the other hand, it looked like something more spectacular, mostly because of it's visuals and stunning effects and also considering that this was a Jerry Bruckheimer film. So this film looked a bit promising.

Most of the time, "Prince of Persia" does what its supposed to do; Delivering some action-filled, fast paced entertainment, to keep the attention of the audience during 116 minutes. While it doesn't becomes something beyond that, it makes a nice watch. But the story starts off as a little monotonic and doesn't take off after twenty minutes or so. But the rest of the film does makes up for that, with some exciting fights and a exciting plot with some clever twists, in spite of a bit frenetic screenplay.

I've never quite pictured Jake Gyllenhall as a sword fighting Persian hero, but he does comes across as passable enough in his part. Although this is far from his most complex role, he has enough charm and screen presence to pass himself during 116 minutes. Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton), the obligatory love interest, is fiery and intelligent, but doesn't comes off as a memorable character - although the obligatory love plot starts off in a unconventional way. The rest of the cast are decent in their parts, but none of them stands particularly out.

I shall honestly confess that I don't have much knowledge about the original video game, but I still saw a few references to a video game during the film; the way Prince Dastan fought, jumping from rooftop to rooftop and twirling on sticks, which was noteworthy (and funny) at first, but not particularly distracting. While the fast-paced closeups and slow motions comes off as unnecessary, the film does however have some nice visuals, a solid, Arabic-inspired score by Harry Gregson-Williams (though this isn't his very best score) and some nice special effects, which makes up for it.

Otherwise, this adaptation of "Prince of Persia" may not be a unforgettable motion picture experience, but it's still a watchable and entertaining way to pass 116 minutes with.