Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

2010. Dir: Mike Newell. Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina and Steve Toussaint. ●●●●○



Last week I went to see a film that I was really looking forward to and ended up being really disappointed, largely because in spite of it's historical pagentry it ended up throwing away all the fun in the concept. This week my low expectations of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time were unjustified as it went the other way (not a care in the world about historical context and) filling the film with layer after layer of fun. I really liked it for that.

It's also a film where describing the plot seems a litle superfluous, not only because it's just a load of macguffin in order to push the action along, but also because Gemma Arterton's Tamina spends the best part of the movie explaining it to us. Essentially Jake Gyllenhaal and his brothers are busy sacking cities in the Middle East searching for smuggled weapons (can't think what that reminds me of) when Jake stumbles across a magical dagger with sand in it's hilt.



Jake's (adoptive) dad is promptly killed, suspicion falls on him, he runs off with Arterton and many twisty turny adventures happen as our leads identify the real killer and try to prevent the bad guys taking the throne.

It really is that simple, and in spite of the plot's collection of minor double crosses we can pretty much guess who's on which side and who's going to be toast before the end credits. Although the last five minutes were a bit of a surprise to me, especially as they seemed to contradict with large tracts of Gemma's expositionary dialogue.

Jake does a grand job in the lead role, wearing a British accent like a glove to avoid seeming odd when compared to the rest of the English cast. He also looks incredibly hot with the new found muscles (a few more gratuitous shirtless scenes would have been appreciated) and there were a couple of sly Brokeback references I picked up - our first sight of Jake involves some man on man wrestling and his first kiss with Gemma almost takes place in a tent... Gemma does her best in a thankless role and Ben Kingsley goes on autopilot as the devoted uncle of Gyllenhaals Prince Dastan - I'll let you guess how devoted he is.

Alfred Molina is probably the stand out cast member though, leering his way through the film as Sheik Amar, part Hugh Griffith in Ben Hur, part John Rhys-Davies in Raiders of the Lost Ark, part Oliver Reed in Gladiator and all Ostrich fancier.

The production design and costume elements are fantastically detailed, and whils I doubt they are even remotely accurate to the period they create a visually interesting movie with a very clear homage to the films computer game heritage. As are the action sequences which make appropriate use of running, jumping and going up and down levels. It sounds silly, but as the genesis of the film is a platform game it's good to see that exhibited in the finished product.

One of the minor points that let the film down was the CGI, with all the money that must have been spent on the movie it was disappointing that when the sands of time things actually happens a Scorpion King quality picture of Jake's face is attached to a bunch of lit blobs until the effects over - was that really the best they could do?

Overall though I would say this is about as good as summer tentpoles get with fun characters, palpable chemistry and a sense of real excitement.