Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Review

Next up on my movie review hit-list is Jerry Bruckheimer's action adventure based loosely on Ubisoft's 2003 video game of the same name. The film is directed by England's own Mike Newell who also did Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The film stars BAFTA award winner and Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal as Prince Dastan the story's protagonist, fighting alongside him is English rose and star of this year's Clash of the Titans Gemma Arterton as Princess Tamina. Together they must obtain a gift from the god's, the Sands of Time. A dagger, which as the title suggests can manipulate time itself. However, as you would expect this tale does have its villain as the legendary Sir Ben Kingsley (a personal favourite of mine) Kingsley plays Nizam, a nobleman who wishes to possess the sands for his own nefarious deeds. In 2004, Jerry Bruckheimer Productions tried to acquire the rights to the Sands of Time so it could be released under Walt Disney Pictures. Eventually, in 2007 Disney announced it would be made and it would be a flagship film for them, in late 2007 Newell was called in and negotiations for him to direct began. The film also feature elements of other Prince of Persia games including Warrior Within and The Two Thrones. The film has a release date of May 28th unless, like me you are a UK resident. We got it May 21st.

"Only the Dagger can unlock the Sands of Time. And there are those who would use this power to destroy the world." Princess Tamina


Going in I had this sinking feeling that this film would simply be awful. Maybe it would be fun but still awful. I was both right and wrong as it was indeed horrible but it lacked any real sense of mindless, adventure film fun. People seemed to think that this could be the new Pirates of the Caribbean but it was not a patch on those films. It lacked any real likeable characters, had absolutely no humour at all and had one of the worst scripts and "plots" I've had the misfortune to witness.
Ok, maybe I'm being a touch harsh. It did have a few epic battles scenes that were nicely done and some of the effects were ok but they seemed too fake. Each time the dagger was used and time was reversed you could see the effects were really rather poor, that it was obviously a computer generated person and that should not happen. We should be wowed by the idea not sitting there thinking how fake it looks!

The cast, while somewhat impressive they just all played really average roles. Gyllenhaal was the worst I had ever seen him, his character Dastan continuously narrated what was going on, as if the audience could not work it out for themselves. Maybe there might be a small minority of morons sitting there saying "oh, so the dagger turns back time does it?" But we really did not need a constant narrative! Now we have Arterton, I personally can't stand her at all so automatically I hated her character. Her lines and background were just too cheesy. Alfred Molina played your textbook wise cracking character, the one out for himself but then has a change of heart. All his attempts at humour fell flat on their face. And finally Kingsley, I admire that man and think he is a wonderful actor but in this he was well below par. He just didn't seem to care at all, as if he was constantly thinking why am I in this film?

The script had been knocking around for about three years and it damn well shows. I've never had the pleasure of playing the games but a friend and the person I saw this with has played the entire franchise and he said this was pretty much identical to the game. They give you a feeble plot that really leads to nothing and you can just jump about a lot and mess with time. That is exactly what this film did. Flimsy and ultimately pointless and incredibly lame plot but you see a lot of impressive jumping about.

I liked the way they seemed to incorporate elements of the game Assassins Creed into this aswell, when we see Dastan stand on a high ledge before diving off the camera pans around him much like it did in AC. So thanks for that Ubisoft.

In conclusion, this really was not a shock to me. I knew it would be lame but foolishly thought I'd get a little bit of mindless, cool action with a bit of humour. All I got was incredible boredom and a numb arse!

2/5