Flick Flak: Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time
Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time
Director: Mike Newell
With: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kinglsey
12A, 115mins
I went into this film determined not to judge it based on the videogame at its source, assuming that, like every other videogame to movie conversion, it would be trampling on the memory of something I loved (Hitman and Max Payne stand accused).
However to my surprise it seems that someone involved in the making of Prince Of Persia may actually have played the games, and as much as I was expecting an awful film, it won me over.
Being realistic, this film is a pantomime of a movie - it is pretty rubbish, yet somehow entertaining. When I saw the trailer for this film a while back I was appalled - the Prince had been given a name, a convoluted story had been spun, when the point of the game was the mystery, and despite being set in Persia the leads were all Western actors with a fake tan that wouldn’t look out of place on the streets of Cardiff.
All of these issues exist in the film itself too. It takes a while to accept that this is indeed Persia, but eventually you just go with it for the sake of entertainment, and a dodgy plot replacing the mystery of the game I suppose has to happen as you cannot have a film without a plot (however flimsy).
The main problem with the film was its occasional crippling cheesiness. While all of the dialogue is clunky and pretty naff, every now and then there were scenes which (not intentionally) reduced the audience to laughter. The moment that stands out for me is when Jake Gyllenhaal’s Prince Dustan remarks out loud just what it is that the dagger he has found can do, in a painfully contrived bit of plot exposition.
As he voices his realisation that the dagger can rewind time, I was reminded of a line from a trailer I have seen a lot recently - “It’s a hot tubtime machine?” “The dagger rewinds time?” I half expected him to look directly to the camera with one eyebrow raised.
Jake Gyllenhaal is a very good actor, and I think anyone in a film like this will look a bit camp, but he was done no favours by repeated close ups of his face looking mildly confused, regardless of the situation. Gemma Arterton plays the Princess Tamina fairly well, and in my book makes up for a thoroughly wooden performance in Clash Of The Titans. I really want to see her in a film which required real acting, but for some reason the Cardiff Cineworld has not released The Disappearance of Alice Creed.
Other performances of note include Ben Kingsley, who can always do a good pantomime villain, and Richard Coyle as Dustan’s brother Tus, who I was amazed to see in a Hollywood blockbuster when the last time I saw him was as Jeff in sitcom Coupling.
However the standout was Alfred Molina playing a cockney (but it’s fine, because they are all definitely Persian) entrepreneur. Whenever he was on screen the film was a little more entertaining, and was actually making the audience laugh intentionally.
There were a number of bizarre and hilarious references in Prince Of Persia which I could not help but laugh about with my friends during the film - I know it’s bad, but for me the film created this relaxed, party-like atmosphere in the more or less full cinema. It’s almost as if it made us drunk on the absurdity of it all. For instance, the thinly veiled allegory surrounding Persia’s sacking of their holy city - because they had been led to believe the city was producing advanced weaponry which was aiding their enemies. However, on invading the city, they could not find the weapons - were they real or just made up to as an excuse to invade? Hmm.
Also, I don’t know if I was just in a funny mood but there seemed to be a lot of innuendo in the film, from the Persian princes declaring that they would break down the Princess’s barriers and infiltrate her inner sanctum, to a statue with conspicuously polished breasts when all the rest of the room was coated in dust. All just added to the daft and enjoyable atmosphere of the film.
To end on a serious note I thought I’d try and give the makers of the film some credit and consider what they got right. Firstly, right from the off, they embrace the focus of the Prince Of Persia games on free-running and acrobatics, even directly borrowing a little feature of the games which involves the camera zooming in on the puzzle which faces the Prince and showing possible paths to overcome it. Although probably adding nothing to the film, this nod to the source material pleased me.
As well as this I detected a real allusion in style to 300, especially with the frequent use of slow motion (so beloved by Zack Snyder), but also in the look of some of the fights and the enemies. The acrobatic fight scenes are highly entertaining, the heavy CGI for the most part looking convincing enough to impress.
Overall then Prince Of Persia won’t be winning any Oscars, but I found it to be fairly exciting, very funny (sometimes intentionally so) and enjoyable. When the inevitable sequel comes out I would be willing to give that a go based on the quality of this.
If anyone has seen the film, please comment, I'd love to hear other opinions!
1 Comment – Postiwch sylw
Scattered
Rhoddwyd sylw 72 mis yn ôl - 1st June 2010 - 11:56am
Ah, I was racking my brains watching this and wondering where I recognised Dustan's brother from! I kind of felt like I'd seen most of it before in The Mummy etc but I enjoyed for the most part, and in the grander scheme of game adaptations this is one of the better efforts.