To get things rolling honestly, there's nothing here you haven't seen before. If you can imagine an amalgamation of the Princess Bride, Aladdin, and Indiana Jones (with a dash of the power of brotherhood/family from The Mighty Ducks), you've got a fair approximation of this movie. The fact is that you could easily recast Errol Flynn as the male lead, and have released it in the thirties, and it would be roughly the same movie. None of it pushes the envelope, none of the plot elements are novel or surprising, and the big twists will be a shock to absolutely no one who has seen really any action/adventure movie of the last fifty years. The romance subplot is fairly formulaic. Simply put, you will not find anything in this movie that hasn't been done in another movie.
Yes, we know that a la Sam and Diane, Wesley and Buttercup, and as far back as Beatrice and Benedick, the constant sniping and banter of Dastan and Tamina will end up evolving into love once they stop trying to backstab and one-up each other. We all know that the big bad is the big bad (I won't spoil this for anyone who might be surprised at all), and that the entire thing centers around what is essentially a macguffin quest in the grandest tradition of Indiana Jones. There is literally only one moment that may cause the savvy moviegoer to say "oh, wow, that's different", which is right at the end. Up to that point, it's all cliched and safe.
I say all of this in order to give myself leeway when I declare that the movie, despite all of that, is simply damned good. It all works, like a good distillation of the different elements into a cohesive whole. It plays these cliches straight, and without being hamhanded about it, or doing it in a winking, smirking "yes we're being cliched, but we know it" kind of way. No lampshade-hanging, no drawing attention to the fact that they obviously knew it was melodramatic and derivative.
And that makes it good. As I said before, you could recast Errol Flynn as Dastan, and here's the thing: Flynn's movies were really damned good. Aladdin was really damned good, The Princess Bride, Indiana Jones, et al, were really damned good.
It's style, then, over substance, and this has it in spades. The action sequences are well-choreographed and fun to watch, and the combat seems to completely accept the unrealistic natural of theatrical fights, and go for balls-to-the-wall awesomeness, rather than any semblance of realism.
The Macguffin chase works, because it's never about the actual item or threat in that kind of movie. The Maltese Falcon was never about the actual statue (nor was The Ark of the Covenant really about the Ark, ditto for the cup of Christ in The Last Crusade). It's a vehicle to provide drama and to force the characters into their adventure. The drama and story is about the characters themselves.
The dialogue is well-written and punchy, even if a bit overwrought at times. The whole "power of love/brotherhood" angle can be a bit much at times, but that's a bit like complaining about those themes in Lord of the Rings. There are moments of true wit, especially in the deadpan snarking of Dastan (who Gyllenhaal manages to imbue with both a sense of actual humanity, as well as a sort of gallows humor; a bit like a Jack Sparrow if he were played as someone with depth by a better actor), and Tamina (who feels every bit his equal, even when she does end up captured a hell of a lot, and who gets some of the best lines of the movie), and in the commentary of the side characters. Shakespeare it ain't, but damned entertaining it is.
There are a few times when the editing seems somewhat choppy, and it's noticeable that they were trying to get things under two hours. Times when Dastan has recently escaped trouble having been betrayed by Tamina, and then it cuts immediately to him finding her again feel a bit rushed. The special effects were really well-done, and surprisingly subtle given what they had to accomplish.
Whether you'll like the movie kind of depends on how you felt about Avatar. If all you could see from it were the cliches and tropes (Dances with Pocahontas in Furngully), and prided yourself on being able to pick up all of those little elements which were derivative of other movies, you'll miss the forest for the trees. If, however, you can appreciate the movie by itself, and isolated from any other movies out there, it's a good way to spend two hours.
So, let's talk about the racism.
Let's clear up a few things first. Persian (as a language) is dead. The closest thing currently would be Farsi, but that'd be a bit like saying that French is a substitute for Latin. We don't know what Persian as a spoken language sounded like.
But, even if we did, the movie should have been in spoken English. Frankly, the idea of filming a movie meant for American release in a foreign language, and then subtitling it would appeal to only a small minority of Americans. Even the most pretentious advocate of anime subbing rather than dubbing argues that it's simply being more true to the original. Recording in Farsi and subbing it back into English would be like having an anime studio (releasing in Japan) hire out the voice acting to America, and then sub it for domestic release. Needless to say, it'd be insane.
Similarly, it'd be nuts to have them speaking with a middle-eastern/Persian/Indian/any other accent from the region. A native Persian speaker (if such a person still existed) speaking to another native Persian speaker would not sound to the person he's talking to anything like a native Persian speaker speaking English. Given that English is "normal" for the audience it's being released to (at least initially), and that they would be speaking their own "normal" tongue, there'd be no sense in making them sound "middle eastern".
So, why an English accent, then? Well, first, it's in the games, too. So, it's basically being faithful. Dastan was always given an English accent in the games. But, even without that, it's the same reason Latin is portrayed as English with a British accent: it both makes it accessible to American audiences, and makes it sound noticeably "foreign".
But what about the cast?
I'm not sure, since I don't know the details. If what happened was that there was an entire possible cast of people from the right region/descent to play the parts, and that they were equally qualified and good actors and actresses to the cast that got filmed, I'd agree it was whitewashing. But I doubt that happened. I'd bet that Gyllenhaal was simply the best actor who auditioned/accepted the offer to be prince Dastan (incidentally, with respect to Movie Bob, Gyllenhaal is of Ashkenazi descent, not Sephardic, making him only about as "middle eastern" as anyone else of European descent). Gemma Aterton is likely the best actress they could get to play Tamina (and she was damned good at it).
Any other standard is a bit unfair, since it would mean to say that independent of relative merits, some jobs should go to certain ethnicities, which sounds... Well... Racist.
Yes, we know that a la Sam and Diane, Wesley and Buttercup, and as far back as Beatrice and Benedick, the constant sniping and banter of Dastan and Tamina will end up evolving into love once they stop trying to backstab and one-up each other. We all know that the big bad is the big bad (I won't spoil this for anyone who might be surprised at all), and that the entire thing centers around what is essentially a macguffin quest in the grandest tradition of Indiana Jones. There is literally only one moment that may cause the savvy moviegoer to say "oh, wow, that's different", which is right at the end. Up to that point, it's all cliched and safe.
I say all of this in order to give myself leeway when I declare that the movie, despite all of that, is simply damned good. It all works, like a good distillation of the different elements into a cohesive whole. It plays these cliches straight, and without being hamhanded about it, or doing it in a winking, smirking "yes we're being cliched, but we know it" kind of way. No lampshade-hanging, no drawing attention to the fact that they obviously knew it was melodramatic and derivative.
And that makes it good. As I said before, you could recast Errol Flynn as Dastan, and here's the thing: Flynn's movies were really damned good. Aladdin was really damned good, The Princess Bride, Indiana Jones, et al, were really damned good.
It's style, then, over substance, and this has it in spades. The action sequences are well-choreographed and fun to watch, and the combat seems to completely accept the unrealistic natural of theatrical fights, and go for balls-to-the-wall awesomeness, rather than any semblance of realism.
The Macguffin chase works, because it's never about the actual item or threat in that kind of movie. The Maltese Falcon was never about the actual statue (nor was The Ark of the Covenant really about the Ark, ditto for the cup of Christ in The Last Crusade). It's a vehicle to provide drama and to force the characters into their adventure. The drama and story is about the characters themselves.
The dialogue is well-written and punchy, even if a bit overwrought at times. The whole "power of love/brotherhood" angle can be a bit much at times, but that's a bit like complaining about those themes in Lord of the Rings. There are moments of true wit, especially in the deadpan snarking of Dastan (who Gyllenhaal manages to imbue with both a sense of actual humanity, as well as a sort of gallows humor; a bit like a Jack Sparrow if he were played as someone with depth by a better actor), and Tamina (who feels every bit his equal, even when she does end up captured a hell of a lot, and who gets some of the best lines of the movie), and in the commentary of the side characters. Shakespeare it ain't, but damned entertaining it is.
There are a few times when the editing seems somewhat choppy, and it's noticeable that they were trying to get things under two hours. Times when Dastan has recently escaped trouble having been betrayed by Tamina, and then it cuts immediately to him finding her again feel a bit rushed. The special effects were really well-done, and surprisingly subtle given what they had to accomplish.
Whether you'll like the movie kind of depends on how you felt about Avatar. If all you could see from it were the cliches and tropes (Dances with Pocahontas in Furngully), and prided yourself on being able to pick up all of those little elements which were derivative of other movies, you'll miss the forest for the trees. If, however, you can appreciate the movie by itself, and isolated from any other movies out there, it's a good way to spend two hours.
So, let's talk about the racism.
Let's clear up a few things first. Persian (as a language) is dead. The closest thing currently would be Farsi, but that'd be a bit like saying that French is a substitute for Latin. We don't know what Persian as a spoken language sounded like.
But, even if we did, the movie should have been in spoken English. Frankly, the idea of filming a movie meant for American release in a foreign language, and then subtitling it would appeal to only a small minority of Americans. Even the most pretentious advocate of anime subbing rather than dubbing argues that it's simply being more true to the original. Recording in Farsi and subbing it back into English would be like having an anime studio (releasing in Japan) hire out the voice acting to America, and then sub it for domestic release. Needless to say, it'd be insane.
Similarly, it'd be nuts to have them speaking with a middle-eastern/Persian/Indian/any other accent from the region. A native Persian speaker (if such a person still existed) speaking to another native Persian speaker would not sound to the person he's talking to anything like a native Persian speaker speaking English. Given that English is "normal" for the audience it's being released to (at least initially), and that they would be speaking their own "normal" tongue, there'd be no sense in making them sound "middle eastern".
So, why an English accent, then? Well, first, it's in the games, too. So, it's basically being faithful. Dastan was always given an English accent in the games. But, even without that, it's the same reason Latin is portrayed as English with a British accent: it both makes it accessible to American audiences, and makes it sound noticeably "foreign".
But what about the cast?
I'm not sure, since I don't know the details. If what happened was that there was an entire possible cast of people from the right region/descent to play the parts, and that they were equally qualified and good actors and actresses to the cast that got filmed, I'd agree it was whitewashing. But I doubt that happened. I'd bet that Gyllenhaal was simply the best actor who auditioned/accepted the offer to be prince Dastan (incidentally, with respect to Movie Bob, Gyllenhaal is of Ashkenazi descent, not Sephardic, making him only about as "middle eastern" as anyone else of European descent). Gemma Aterton is likely the best actress they could get to play Tamina (and she was damned good at it).
Any other standard is a bit unfair, since it would mean to say that independent of relative merits, some jobs should go to certain ethnicities, which sounds... Well... Racist.