BrockTalk

The video game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was released on the Playstation 2 in 2003, and still holds a place in my heart as one of my favorite video games of all time. With that said, when I heard they were making a movie adaptation I was initially intrigued though I knew in my heart that most video game-to-movie adaptations are quite terrible. When the promising trailer was finally released and it was also revealed that the same team behind the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were handling the Prince franchise I became even more intrigued. If they could turn a theme park ride into a decent movie, what would they be able do with an established story, especially one that was pretty strong for a video game? Well, I'm happy to report that while the movie version of the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is far from perfect, it is by far the best movie-to-video game adaptation to date.

Prince of Persia holds true to the core heart of the story established from the original video game, but obviously makes changes and additions as needed to make for a full movie and provide greater character development. Speaking of character development, I'm going to go ahead and praise Prince for doing what other movies I have seen this year could not. It completely baffles me that for a movie based on a video game the character development in Prince, while not the best ever, far excels the character development of a movie based on an earlier movie and a movie based on a popular book franchise. If you have read my earlier reviews you know that I'm speaking of course of Clash of the Titans and Percy Jackson and the Olympians respectively. While the final screenplay has its' moments of cheesiness and flaws, the story backing it is probably the movie's greatest strength. The plot involves a young orphan boy living in the slums of Persia who is adopted into royalty after the king witnesses him saving another in an act of courage and selflessness. Flash forward several years later and we rejoin the boy now known as Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhall) in the middle of a siege on a kingdom suspected of housing weapons of mass destruction. (Yes ,this part of the story was no doubt plucked straight from our headlines). While the initial search seems to turn up nothing of the sort, Dastan soon finds out that a dagger he acquired during the battle is in fact the weapon to which they were searching for. This dagger has the ability to turn back time and only the wielder is aware that anything has taken place at all. This power in the wrong hands could be a very dangerous thing indeed, which is why the princess of the city under siege was the dagger's sworn protector. However, something is afoot as the young prince is suddenly thrown into the role of  outlaw after being accused of murdering the king, and is forced on the run with the accompaniment of the princess. The plot unfolds and results in a satisfying sweeping adventure in the same vain as The Mummy and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The movie has received much flak for casting white actors in the role of Persians, but this didn't bother me too much as I understand Disney is really banking on this to be its' new franchise to replace Pirates, and needed a well known actor to helm the title role. Gyllenhaal provides a solid enough performance among the other supporting actors to carry the film, but doesn't provide the spark Johnny Depp was able to give the Pirates movies. This isn't necessarily Gyllenhaal's fault as the role doesn't require the flamboyance and fun that Depp's role did, but this will no doubt impede Prince from enjoying the same break out success as the Pirates films.

We now come to my main complaint of the movie which is the action sequences and special effects. This is too bad as the whole fun of the video game was watching the prince run up and across walls, swing from flag poles, and slide down tapestries so I feel this should have been a priority for the film. The director no doubt made a wise decision in toning down some of the stunts as to not have them be too unbelievable, but when they do occur the angles and techniques used are so terrible that many times they result in either being cheesy or too hard for the viewer to identify what's taking place on screen at all. There is a scene in the final act of the film shown in the trailer where the prince is caught in a landslide of sand, and the cgi used on the prince as he is sliding down in the whirlwind of sand just looks incredibly off. Another poor directorial decision I noticed was early in the film when Dastan was trying to find his way around in the castle during the siege and  just like in  a video game the camera showed the path needed to make it to the prince's destination. While this works in video games as a way to help show the player the ultimate goal, there is just no need for this technique to be used in film as it again just comes off as cheesy.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time ultimately has its' fair share of flaws, but still provides strong enough story telling, decent acting, and sprinkles of fun to be an enjoyable summer movie popcorn flick. I have to say that both my wife and I agreed that we enjoyed it more than Iron Man 2, although we may be somewhat biased as we are both fans of the original game. This opinion could be swapped if you are a bigger comic book than video game fan. Either way, if you go into Prince with your expectations not set to the stars you'll find your typical summer movie style quality with enough fun to be had to foot the bill.