Game-based films have never exactly been the pinnacle of culture, perhaps because the two formats are so deceptively different from each other. Most of the ones that have come out in the past have suffered from trying to cram in too many very disparate ideas for the sake of the fans, being too far removed from the original game and almost unrecognizable apart from name-dropping, or being made by Uwe Boll.

But Whitney showed me the trailer for the 2010 Prince of Persia film yesterday and even though I wasn't really daring to hope for anything I've got to say it's looking... surprisingly good. (I have to make the concession that I also said this about the Silent Hill film before I saw it.) The 1991 Prince of Persia was a cinematic game before anyone even knew what "cinematic" meant, so it's nice to see that after nearly twenty years it's finally getting a film of its own. This one is, of course, based on the only loosely thematically related Sands of Time trilogy, but both the game this is based on and the film itself have had Jordan Mechner on board as the writer, and based on previous experience he seems to be one of the people with the increasingly rare talent of being able to make things that aren't crap.

From watching the trailer, it actually looks like it has a good try at staying close to the look and feel of the game without trying to stuff the whole thing as-is into a film format, and without even Matrixing it up as much as might be tempting for something so based on time manipulation. Some of the supposed Persians are suspiciously pale and/or English, but that's not really anything new compared to the original.

Yes, it's not going to have a vast impact on the cultural film landscape, but it looks like fun in a Pirates of the Carribean kind of way - I'm going to be looking forward to seeing this.

Now watch me be as wrong about the film as I was about the game.