Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time

A Partially Educated Review of Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time

In which we have the best-reviewed video game adaptation of all time. God help the other ones!

It would seem that some members of the Hollywood institution have great issues when it comes to the phrase "if you can't beat them, join them", in that they don't know when that phrase should be applicable. This mentality is most evident in the stream of video game adaptations that have been thrust upon us. Through the works luminaries like Uwe Boll, Paul W.S. Anderson and Andrzej Bartkowiak, one point has been clearly demonstrated: films based on video games are about as appealing a prospect as 24 hours locked inside a room with the cast of Geordie Shore and the complete DVD box set of Made In Chelsea. Given this, combined with the fact that they are usually reserved for the worst directors going, the question needs to be asked: what the hell possessed Mike Newell to make one?

Trailer contains spoilers that the film doesn't hide particularly well anyway

Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time stars Jake Gyllenhaal as the titular prince, Dastan, a former street urchin who was adopted and raised by the King of Persia. Dastan and his brothers conduct a successful siege on a city suspected of supplying Persia's enemies with weapons, and take Gemma Arterton's Princess One-Dimensional, here known as Tamina, prisoner along the way. During the celebrations, however, the King is murdered when a cloak presented to him by Dastan turns out to have been covered with… I'm not sure what actually, but it basically burns him to death. Suspected of murder, Dastan is forced to flee with Tamina, where he sets about clearing his name. It is during this time that he discovers that a dagger that he has stolen from the city has the power to turn back time using the mythical sands of time and the same people who have framed him would very much like to take that dagger from him.

A common criticism of video game adaptations is that they feel like watching someone playing a video game, rather than just playing it yourself, and that's not something a lot of people enjoy. In my opinion, this isn't always the case. My bigger issue is that a lot of them are about as faithful to the source material as Pearl Harbo(u)r was to facts. In addition, I'm one of those sad cases who can sit watching people play certain video games and not get fed up. Nonetheless, if there's one game where that's not applicable, it's The Sands Of Time. That's not meant as a knock on the game as I remember absolutely loving playing it, but the linearity of the game itself meant there wasn't particularly anything of interest to watch if you didn't have the controller in your hand. Watching the film version really is just like watching someone play the game. Overly-expository dialogue precedes every set piece, feeling like those really annoying games which spoon feed you every bit of information, as though you're incapable of figuring it out for yourself. Except, this is a film so you don't even get the pleasure of then going on to do it for yourself. It's like a game thinking you're too thick to manage it.

All that may be tolerable if they managed to garner some interest from elsewhere, be it some decent performances or a decent story. Unfortunately, neither exist. In some cases, the terrible acting isn't actually too surprising. SIR! Ben Kingsley has been phoning in his performances for years now, too busy finding new ways to inflate his own opinion of himself, rather than realising that his descent into self-caricature has completed and the quality of his performances has reached a new low. You'd have thought he'd learn to stay away from video game films after BloodRayne, but sadly that is one lesson he is still yet to take on board. Gemma Arterton, meanwhile, has built up a slightly sad reputation of playing bland roles in bland action films (Clash Of The Titans, Hansel And Gretel), conveniently filling the shoes of Britain's Most Wooden Actress after Keira Knightly learnt how to act. It baffles me as to how Arterton demonstrates such effortless charisma and wit in interviews, but then fails to bring anything remotely interesting to the table in her roles. I want to like her performances, because I like her. She's just not making it easy to do that.

The performance that brings up the most confusion though is Jake Gyllenhaal's, as he seemingly forgets that he's a good actor. It's like there's a determination on his part to not descend to the same lows of Keanu Reeves' or Russell Crowe's attempts at the British accent. While he succeeds in this respect, it comes at the expense of a performance that is even remotely acceptable. It doesn't matter that he's delivering lines that feel like they belong in the likes of Sharknado, because it appears that his finely chiseled body is empty of anything closely resembling humanity. His line delivery borders on monosyllabic and he seems so vacant that he makes Henry Cavill's performance as Superman appear multi-dimensional.

As for interesting plot developments, forget it. Perhaps they would have worked better if they were remotely unpredictable. The reveal of who is behind the murder of Dastan's father is obvious, regardless of whether you've watched the trailer or not. If you have watched the trailer though, it's yet another one where they blow one of the major plot points. Elsewhere, the ending is telegraphed very, very early, but don't worry if you miss it, the constant conversations about the origins of the sands of time pretty much scream what's going to happen throughout, meaning that any level of tension or excitement is destroyed by the film's own inability to keep it's mouth shut.

Speaking of failing, there's Mike Newell to talk about. Not many directors can weave through genres and produce work of high quality, but Newell is (most of the time) one of them. Here is a man who followed Four Wedding And A Funeral with Donnie Brasco, before stopping off at the criminally underrated Pushing Tin. He's even proven himself in this genre before, by making one of the decent Harry Potter films. Here though, it's impossible to see any directorial touch. It's like Newell's dialogue on set was comprised entirely of the phrases:

"ACTION!"

"Yep, that'll do"

"CUT!"

"Where's my pay check?"

It's not that it's been directed on autopilot, so much as that it's just not been directed. This feels far more like a film that was made by the producer, ticking the boxes for mass appeal, but forgetting that an enjoyable film should be top of that list. Of course, this is a film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, so box ticking would never happen!

*COUGH*piratesofthecaribbean*COUGH*

You can't talk about a big budget blockbuster without analysing the spectacle of it. I should probably take this moment to say that if you've come looking for positives, you're wasting your time. There is nothing here that you haven't seen before elsewhere, with the possible exception of ostrich racing and that's nowhere near as fun as it sounds. Nothing makes you wonder how they did it, because it's blatantly all CGI and everything feels just so expensively bereft of anything resembling an artistic touch. It's also fairly shameless in ripping off ideas from other video games. A shot of Dastan stood on a high ledge results in the very same rotating angle that you get in the Assassin's Creed games when you activate a viewpoint. There's also a group of assassins, here referred to as Hassansins, presumably because someone read Wikipedia and found the name of the first Assassin Grandmaster. Well done, you, although if you really wanted to be clever you could have called them Hashashins, because, you know, that's a name they actually did go by. Who needs accuracy though? Anyway, back to point, one of these Hassansins has blades on chains. He may be called Kratos, but that would imply that the filmmakers deem the screaming man with big weapons important enough for a name.

According to Rotten Tomatoes, Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of TIme is the best-reviewed video game adaptation of all time. The fact that it's still only got 35% should be enough of an indictment of how bad these films really are. Watching this film makes the indictment a whole lot worse. Don't worry, though. Need For Speed, Assassin's Creed, Ratchet And Clank, Warcraft, Metal Gear Solid, Mass Effect, Deus Ex and Splinter Cell have all got filmic adaptations in the works. Add to this reboots for Tomb Raider, Hitman and Mortal Kombat. Surely one of them will buck the trend, right?

ONE out of five

Contains Jake Gyllenhaal shirtless. If that's enough to sell the film to you, you deserve to suffer through it.

P.S. They're also making an Angry Birds film. Erm……… Yay?