Disney’s Persia a Game Re-imagining
After the Persians ransack her city, Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) finds herself thrust into the arms of Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), the man most responsible for the overthrow of her home. Her reasons for going so agreeable revolve around his possession of a fabled dagger that allows its user to backtrack a minute in time, the royal priestess responsible for its protection and understandably eager to get it back.
Jake Gyllenhaal jumps into action in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time © Walt Disney Pictures
But nothing goes as planned for the couple, both of them forced to flee into the desert for their lives after Dastan is framed for the murder of his loving adoptive father King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup). Tracked by murderous assassins sent by the Prince’s uncle Nizam (Ben Kingsley), the pair find themselves thrust into an adventure the likes of which neither could ever have imagined, the fate of the entire world resting upon whether or not the twosome can protect the dagger’s secrets from the evil seeking it.
There are a lot of nice things to be said about producer Jerry Bruckheimer (the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy) and director Mike Newell’s (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Their film offers up some solid bits of action, is reasonably well-plotted and at a scant 100 minutes is thankfully briskly paced. For a film based on a video game this one far surpasses the majority of those that have come before it, and other than the first Resident Evil it is one of the few I can imagine myself agreeing to watch again.
The bad news? The movie offers up some insanely bad plot twists during the finale that made me throw my arms up in exasperation calling moot nearly every single thing that took place during the narrative. Additionally, as much as I adore Ben Kingsley he really has to stop taking roles like this one, his hyperactive overly theatrical villainous performance the same one he’s been trotting out in stinkers like Thunderbirds and BloodRayne.
Additionally, while Newell is a solid director who I’ll always give the benefit of the doubt to thanks to Donnie Brasco and Into the West his overuse of slow motion here is highly distracting. On top of that, he and his team of editors (three are credited, including multi Oscar-winner Michael Kahn) seem to go out of their way to make some of the more thrilling action moments positively nonsensical. I found it virtually impossible to track what was going on, Dastan’s dashes across rooftops or his alleyway skirmishes so frenetically cut the excitement gets drained right out of them.
On the positive side of things I was actually surprised how solid a hero the usually internalized and dour Gyllenhaal made, and while he doesn’t share a lot of chemistry with Arterton (who, after this and Clash of the Titans, isn’t exactly living up to her early hype) the two of them still make a decently attractive couple. I liked Dastan, felt like the actor gave him the required gravitas I needed in order to root for him to succeed, and as dashing figures rushing through the desert go while he’s no T.E. Lawrence or Indiana Jones I’d certainly take him over the likes of Richard ‘Rick’ O’Connell or Lara Croft any day of the week.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time certainly isn’t a bad film. The humor isn’t as campy or as rampant as it was in those abysmal Brendan Fraser Mummy movies, and while there is a lot of CGI it isn’t quite as obnoxious as it easily could have been. My gripes about the editing aside a lot of the action is pretty solid, a couple of the latter fights between Dastan and his Hassansin stalkers fairly exciting. There is a great role for the always reliable Alfred Molina, and an out of left field bit involving ostrich racing actually got me to laugh out loud (in a good way).
I just wanted more than I ultimately got, the movie in need of a better villain and certainly a more interesting climax. By the time it was over I’d felt like I’d been a tiny bit cheated, the time I’d spent investing in a few of the characters and their plights ultimately not worthy of the effort. Yet while I found this twist of third act fate annoying I’m not at all sure general audiences will do the same, and with a gentile ho-hum and a shrug of the shoulders based on the things I did enjoy about it I’m more than willing to give Prince of Persia a windswept desert pass of a minor approval.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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