If you go back in time, videogame wise, you will find Prince of Persia on the Apple II. One of the first games that looked next generation. A simple dungeon exploration game, but with animation that was never seen before. Fast forward the next 20 odd years and there has been many incarnations of the Prince of Persia series, most far removed from the side scrolling original. One such version was called the sands of time, which allowed you to replay the last few seconds of the game if things didn’t go your way.
The movie, is loosely based on this concept, hence its called Sands of Time. Prince Dastan, at one time was a street kid who was taken under the wing of the ruling King, who spotted him being courageous. Dastan grew up to be a Prince and due to a case of mistaken War (which takes a pop at hidden weapons that don’t exist, where have we heard that before) where he ends up doing his usual parkour induced fighting and gets great acclaim. So much so that with such acclaim, you have to honor your King with a gift, after a victory, and he does so. Granted, it’s an old jacket or something that his brother gave him as Dastan would forget to run to the shops in between all the celebrating. They obviously washed the jacket before hand, and obviously used the wrong washing powder as the King gets an allergic reaction and subsequently burns to death. Being innocent of the whole ordeal, Dastan goes on the run with the local, now conquered, Princess and a particular dagger, that has the power to do a DeLorean on it, and go back a minute in time. Will Dastan prove he is innocent? Will Ben Kingsley rock the new eyeliner look? Will there be a lawsuit over dodgy washing powder?
Jake Gyllenhaal really bulked up for this movie. The brokeback star does look the part of action hero as he jumps, runs and leaps around the screen like Mario on acid. And he’s also handy with a sword to boot. Jake has always come across as the weedy looking guy in movies, but credit where its due, that certainly wouldn’t work here, and he has done wonders with the look. Ok, so his hair might not be great, but we can get over that. He is quite believable in the role, although the dialogue leaves a bit to be desired and at times it gets really Hammy. That said though, his accent, to his credit is brilliantly consistent throughout. As for the rest of the cast, Ben Kingsley dials in an adequate but lacklustre performance as does Gemma Arterton as Princess Tamina. Alfred Molina, on the other hand, is quite brilliant as Sheik Amar, as he brings a huge personality to the screen. With the exception of Molina, all the characters have an uncanny knack of being completely unlikeable.
Video games as an unwritten rule, have never made decent movies. Some of that can be down to the fact of budgets and what not, but no expense has been spared here by the Jerry Bruckheimer produced POP. The set pieces genuinely look superb and the special effects and epic throughout. But If I had to be critical, there is too much bloody sand. Look, I know its a Persian movie per se, but the whole palette of the movie is very muted and at times is almost sleep inducing hypnotic. The parkour (free running) sections of the movie are incredibly well done and flow incredibly smoothly and at times are more reminiscent of another video game, Assassins Creed, that anything else.
While Bruckheimer may have turned a theme park ride into a hugely successful movie franchise, he doesn’t do it completely here. Yes, its a popcorn flick and it certainly is the best looking videogame adaptation to date and it probably is the first half decent movie version of a videogame, and it is enjoyable at times. That said though, I expected a lot more. It can get bogged down in dialogue and a number of slow moving scenes but never the less the younger audiences will probably love it. Prince of Persia is not a bad movie, but for me, well, I just didn’t take to it.
