By now we’ve all the seen the Prince of Persia trailer, it’s been all over the net for months and even aired during last night’s Super Bowl XLIV. It’s being backed by Disney, boasts Jake Gyllenhaal and Ben Kingsley as its leads, and has Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) directing. The project looks promising to say the least. Then why are we not as excited as we should be? This could be our saving grace from years of piss-poor video game adaptions. Prince of Persia could do to video game films what Spider-Man did for comic book films. But it won’t and I’ll tell you why.

There’s just way too much sand in the trailer! I know they’re in the middle of the desert and all but for god’s sake does everything have to be sand colored? It’s like playing Gears of War, there’s noting but endless golden brown throughout the entire 30 second TV spot. It’s even worse if you have to sit through the 2:30 minute full-length trailer online.

If you can remember way back when the original Spider-Man trailer was released it was full of color. From the bright reds that cover Spidey’s suit to the contrasting greens found in the Green Goblin’s costume. You were kept visually occupied throughout the entire clip. The same can be said for other blockbuster trailers from Transformers, The Pirates of the Caribbean, and more recently Avatar.

There’s a lot of action packed into the trailer but it’s hidden behind mounds of sandstone. It’s as if I’m wearing sand-colored glasses. Prince of Persia is a blockbuster film with millions of dollars poured into its production, so there are no excuses. At my Super Bowl party I saw better reactions out of my family and friends after watching The Wolfman trailer than Prince of Persia’s. Disney better pull every colorful detail from every frame in their next trailer if they don’t want PoP to become just another dust in the wind.