Before Mackie encounters one of Marvel’s most powerful villains, the star will appear in a new historical action movie, Desert Warrior<\/a>. Furthermore, his legendary bandit actually battles with another Marvel Cinematic Universe alum, Ben Kingsley, who portrays the antagonist Emperor Kisra. The story follows an Arabian princess and a bandit teaming up against the ruthless emperor.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, critics weren’t too fond of the new action movie. According to Rotten Tomatoes, Desert Warrior has a 31% score, but it’s based on only 13 reviews. Despite stunning visuals that are reminiscent of Lawrence of Arabia, critics and film pundits were less than enthused by the Arabian adventure, deeming it boring and forgettable.<\/p>\n In ScreenRant<\/a>‘s review of Desert Warrior<\/a>, Alex Harrison was disappointed by the poor execution, even going so far as to call it “an epic misfire.” Awarding a 4 out of 10 stars, he agreed with the consensus that the historical epic was “a mostly boring, mostly forgettable movie” because it was “trying so hard to be cool and lacking any of the style or charisma to pull it off.”<\/p>\n In contrast, moviegoers were far more engaged by the beautiful setting and action, which resulted in a 62% audience score. This also extends Mackie’s Rotten Tomatoes streak, as moviegoers responded favorably to his last six movies. Interestingly, all but one movie received mostly mixed-to-negative reviews and became designated “rotten” on the site. <\/p>\n It’s worth noting that Desert Warrior had a delayed production ahead of its release. The epic began filming in September 2021 and completed production in February the following year. Desert Warrior has a whopping $150 million budget, which made it the most expensive movie produced in Saudi Arabia. However, it took another four years for the film to finally land in theaters since it had a long post-production.<\/p>\n At one point, director Rupert Wyatt briefly left the movie over creative differences before eventually returning to finalize the editing. Alongside Mackie and Kingsley, the remaining cast includes Aiysha Hart, Sharlto Copley, Sami Bouajila, Lamis Ammar, and Ghassan Massoud. Wyatt co-wrote the screenplay with Erica Beeney and David Self, who created the story.<\/p>\n During those four years, both Marvel stars continued their roles in the MCU. After being a supporting character to Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers, Mackie’s Sam became the hero of his own story, inheriting the patriotic mantle in Captain America: Brave New World. The star will reunite with Evans and Sebastian Stan in the upcoming team-up movie, Avengers: Doomsday. <\/p>\n After Kingsley portrayed Trevor Slattery, who was also the fake Mandarin in Iron Man 3, he has had a major presence in the last five years, including an appearance in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Like Mackie, the Oscar-winning actor was upgraded to co-lead the Disney+ series, Wonder Man, in which Trevor befriends a struggling actor, Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who secretly has powers. The Marvel show earned a season 2 renewal<\/a>, which is a rare feat for the universe’s television side. <\/p>\n Desert Warrior is now playing in theaters.<\/p>\n Release Date<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApril 24, 2026<\/p>\n Runtime<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t114 minutes<\/p>\n Director<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRupert Wyatt<\/p>\n Writers<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDavid Self, Erica Beeney, Gary Ross, Rupert Wyatt<\/p>\n Producers<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJeremy Bolt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A historical action movie starring two Marvel Cinematic Universe stars has critics and audiences battling it out on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-607015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hind](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/hind-on-a-horse-with-the-bandit-touching-it-and-looking-over-his-shoulder-in-desert-warrior.jpg\"\/)
\n Hind on a horse with the bandit touching it and looking over his shoulder in Desert Warrior<\/p>\n![\"desert-warrior-poster.webp\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/desert-warrior-poster.webp.jpeg\"\/)
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