Prince of Persia: The sands of time, 2010
Director:Mike Newell
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley
Prince of Persia in short: Based on the video game, which follows an adventurous prince who teams up with a rival princess to stop an angry ruler from unleashing a sandstorm that could destroy the world.
Stage: Local theatre; Colloseum.
Preps: Hm. I know the video game. It was the first on my first-ever-computer at home, when I was a kid. However, I didn't enjoy it as much as some other teens did. So I never got to play it a lot. In spite this fact, the technology nowadays can be impressive and serve to its purpose precisely in these cases, like Prince Of Persia. I hava a strong feeling about a spectacle, deriving from the impressive trailer I saw.
Reality: Well, it's a good remake of the famous PC game. At least in sense of finding / or storekeeping the treasure, getting the princess, while you are at it, chasing through the streets of the main city (as the PC game vividly showed 20 years ago). The story is somehow predictable, and the director should stick to it also in the beginning. The invasion on Alamut is simply something taken out of a different picture, different stage. I don't see this as a good example for setting up the movie. I don't get, who's who, who's fighting, what are they fighting for. In spirit of lately seen hystorical movies I subconsciously corelate this scene with all the others and this one doesn't even touch the knees of the others.
Nevertheless, I seem to think through the whole movie, what movie is that this one reminds me of. I am more than satisfied to realize, that it reminds me of the Pirates of the Carribean. The dialogues between Prince and the Princess are just so.. black-humoured, straight forward, like between Depp and Knightley in the Pirates. I see later on a poster in front of our theatre that it's the same producer (makes sense then, however, it's just a reminder, far from the real Pirates gig).
As a package, the movie won't dissappoint you, but you need to accept certain phantasy driven miracles - jumping through roofs, falling several meters down and just standing up, like you haven't broken a single bone; going back in time and changing things.
Philosophically it seems going back in time and having the ability to change something you think changed your destiny is a powerful tool every person in this world would want to have. It has inspired many pictures and many artists. In this case, Disney-like ending; everyone is happy and everyone gets what they deserve. A bit naive, but so is the video game ;)
My personal rating: 6,0 (you will see it reminds you of the Pirates of the Carribean, however, it's just a reminder, not as close as you would want it to be. And only in terms of dialogues, that is).
Prince of Persia on IMDB
Prince official site
A difference between Johny Depp and Jake Gyllenhaal is their repertoire of expression as it seems to me that the latter has only one! I was expecting the movie to be worse, so I agree with your rating. In a sense I would classify it as an "enjoyable nonsense". maybe twenty years ago a film like this one would have impressed me much more than it does today.
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