Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (PG-13)
This film is currently playing in theaters all over Orange County.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a film adapted from a video game of the same name. Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), an adapted prince of King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup) of Persia and war hero, after being framed for the murder of the said King, runs off with Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) of a rival kingdom, trying to find a way to clear his name. Meanwhile, the actual mastermind behind the murder is looking for the mystical Dagger of Time which Dastan happens to be carrying, a piece that allows the user to change history, and/or cause the destruction of the world.
I'll go on and say it. I have a soft spot for films based on video games. Majority of the time, I can turn my brain off and enjoy it without thinking too hard about the plot. At best, they’re entertaining. At worst, they’re boring. They’re like B-movies with budget. They’re rehash of done ideas that have gone through the meat grinder and reprocessed for consumption. They’re hot dogs, essentially. There’s a certain expectation I have when I am about to eat a hot dog. If it doesn’t taste like Fillet Mignon or Caviar, I can say I got what I paid for, even if those things cost more than the hot dog. With that said, this film is the right hot dog…mostly.
Considering its source, it’s hard to dislike this film. It has its flaws, but there are so many things working for it, at least visually...more than they needed to be. The sets are spectacular and the overall bustling mood of the environment is photographed beautifully. I loved the variety of colors, the intricate yet subtle details, designs of weapons and costumes, the complexity of the castles, the swordfights, the jumps over the rooftops, the occasional cheesy, yet fun, dialogue, and mean-looking villains. As for the sense of scale, it has been given the Lord of the Rings treatment, minus the seriousness and drama. Although it suffers from occasional overuse of CG, whenever the film focuses on the fights and the stunts, it does quite well as an action yarn.
Jake Gyllenhaal is quite a competent action hero as Dastan. His action scenes are always fun to watch and he looks the part of the swashbuckling hero. There isn’t a lot of dramatic complexity in his role, yet he has great screen presence here. Similarly, Ben Kingsley in the villainous role of Nizam is fun to watch. His presence simply brings that extra “oomph” to the role. Gemma Arterton is quite pretty and capable as Princess Tamina—she does a lot better here than she did as Io in the latest Clash of the Titans.
As for the story, it’s quite jumbled, and this is perhaps the film's weakest point. Whenever you have a time travel tale, and you can change a past, there are issues. Tension is lost when you can fix any problem through time travel—you can bring people back to life this way. To add, some elements of the plot are glossed over and not explained in much detail. Characters go from place to place, doing stuff, but sometimes I couldn’t be clear in exactly what they were supposed to do or look for. Sometimes it feels like the film was missing key scenes. Certain enemies become friends quite quickly over small things. The nice visuals almost cover up some of the story inconsistencies...almost.
This film reminded me how much I missed the old-fashioned swashbucklers. Many period films these days tend to be so serious and “authentic” that some of the “fun” has been lost—the latest Robin Hood could’ve done well with more “fun.” This film is rarely ever boring. The action is fun, the characters are fun, and the visuals are nice. I just wished they spent more time on cleaning up the loosely slapped-together plot, because I really loved the energy. I wonder if it is more of an insult or a compliment to say, "it's pretty good for a video game movie?" Overall, on that basis, I enjoyed Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time just enough to give it *** out of **** stars.
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