Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time joins a club that includes Max Payne, Street Fighter, Hitman, and five (and counting) Uwe Boll productions. The only requirements to join? You must be a film based on a video game property, and you can’t be particularly entertaining. Prince of Persia, your membership card is in the mail.
In the Persian Empire of the sixth century, a young urchin named Dastan is adopted by King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup) after a display of courage. Fifteen years later, the grown Dastan (a newly buff Jake Gyllenhaal), along with his adopted uncle, Nizam (Ben Kingsley), and brothers Garsiv (Toby Kebbell) and Tus (Richard Coyle), undertake the invasion of a city believed to be selling weapons to their enemies. Dastan comes into possession of a one-of-a-kind dagger during the conflict, an acquisition that gains the attention of Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton), the willful ruler of the city. When the king arrives to scold his sons for their unwise attack, he’s promptly assassinated courtesy of a poisoned robe. Guess who gets framed?
Fleeing for his life, Dastan winds up trekking across Persia with Tamina and the dagger in tow, a hefty bounty now being offered for his capture. After a struggle over possession of the bejeweled weapon, our hero finally realizes its power: by pressing a button on the hilt, the wielder can step back in time and receive a metaphysical mulligan. This leads Daston on a quest to return the dagger to its rightful place, expose the king’s killer, and maybe even find a little true love in the process.
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time offers the expected amount of CGI antics and swashbuckling adventure, but the screen is ultimately dominated by the sheer physical beauty of the two leads (even if they don‘t exactly resemble residents of modern-day Iran). Director Mike Newell must have realized the same thing, as he never misses an opportunity for a close-up highlighting Gyllenhaal’s soulful, puppy-dog eyes and Arterton’s perfect…uh, everything. Despite the clunky dialogue intended to pass as clever banter, the bickering duo manage to hold our gaze through assassin attacks, ostrich races, and too many instances of walking around in the desert.
While it’s hardly their shining moment as thespians, the film does allow us to witness two future cinematic superstars in action. Gyllenhaal’s stock has been on the rise ever since Donnie Darko, and Arterton has already appeared in Clash of the Titans, another CGI-laden 2010 blockbuster. With the latter, it’s also refreshing to see a woman who doesn’t appear emaciated, especially since a motion picture starring Sarah Jessica Parker–Hollywood’s worst role-model for body-conscious women–also opened this weekend.
But while the film is long on good looks, it’s short in almost every other department. The screenplay is listless (except for a few comical scenes featuring Alfred Molina as an ostrich-loving deadbeat), the action uninspired, and the computer-generated effects largely unnecessary. Fans of the video game series should at least breathe a sigh of relief, though, as Dastan gets to engage in plenty of running, jumping, and balancing that can best be described as parkour-lite.
The biggest flaw, however, comes during the film’s climax. After sitting through an hour-and-a-half of shaky fight scenes, stock villains, and cookie cutter wisdom regarding the importance of family, it’s all dashed against the rocks by a plot device that any sentient member of the audience (text senders excluded) should see coming for miles. It’s both a cop-out and just plain irritating.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time had promise, but it ultimately goes the way of so many movies released by Walt Disney Pictures. The end goal is not to provide outstanding entertainment, but rather to produce a non-threatening product designed to pack as many members of the family as possible into a mini-van bound for the local multiplex. Not surprisingly, the biggest audience reaction during my screening came from a trio of teenage girls. If only I could travel back in time, I’d suddenly be minus a movie ticket.
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