Prince of Persia is an action-adventure video game franchise created in 1989 by Jordan Mechner, which presented various incarnations of the titular Prince facing otherworldly foes and using magical artifacts in action-packed adventures set within ancient and medieval Persia. Taking inspiration from stories like Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and the One Thousand- and One-Nights stories, the franchise would grow to feature several spin-offs and sequels, eventually inspired a similar action-based game with a historical edge in Assassin’s Creed, and eventually (like most popular games) get its own film adaptation released in 2010 under the Disney brand. However, unlike other attempts that crashed and burned, this one was a little less burnt. In the streets of Persia, a young street rat named Dastan (played distractingly by Jake Gyllenhaal) is randomly picked up by the King of Persia (played by Ronald Pickup) and adopted as his own son. Now a grown man, he and his two brothers, Tus and Garsiv (played by Richard Coyle and Toby Kebbell) conquer the sacred city of Alamut, led by Princess Tamina (played by Gemma Arterton) which holds a sacred dagger with the ability to turn back time when filled with special sand.  After retrieving the dagger for himself and during a celebration, Dastan is deceived by his uncle, Prince Nizam (played by Ben Kingsley) and through an enchanted robe which Dastan bestows to him, accidentally kills his father. Now a fugitive and with a bounty of his head for the murder of the king, Dastan is told by Tamina about the dagger’s time-wielding properties, and they put together that Nizam is planning to use it to travel back in time in order to become king himself. The two must journey back to the palace while coming across some odd characters, including a merchant bandit named Sheik Amir (played by Alfred Molina) and his crew, convinces his brothers of his true innocence, and prevent Nizam from corrupting all of time with his misdeeds. Despite not connecting much to the original source and having glaring issues involving the characters, the acting, the story and the overall experience, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has an energy that is likeable and has charming actors that work enough to not come across as completely obnoxious, despite the films hiccups and dumb mistakes.

Though the film seems to be basing itself off of the 2003 game, The Sands of Time, from its title, it actually doesn’t follow its narrative structure that well. It has the same outline of a Prince obtaining a dagger, encountering a princess who is connected to the dagger and a villainous vizier trying to use it for dark deeds, the film takes a more generic approach and adds in this revenge plotline which involves familial connections and being framed for murder. What’s weird is that Jordan Mechner was in charge of writing the story, so this didn’t come from outside sources altering the game, it came from the creator himself. While these additions don’t hurt the film per say and it would be fine if it wanted to alter a few things from the original, but not only does the game’s story feel a bit more unique and intriguing, but these additions are cliched and don’t add anything to the franchise, if anything it makes it more generic. This mixture between a family drama like something right out of a historical royal drama and a goofy visual-effects heavy video game adaptation doesn’t mesh through the writing or the direction, so they’re constantly fighting for attention against the other and neither is developed well or particularly engaging. The premise of the game is very simple and moreso runs on its witty writing and fast-paced parkour-based game play, but it was presented well, and the delivery made certain scenes, characters, and moments memorable because of it.  The film gets very easily distracted with several diversion that don’t impact much of the overall story, coming across like an excuse for padding. The film has an element of staleness when it comes to its direction, with Mike Newell, who worked on films like Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, not properly clicking with the source material or the tone the film is set in, and so resulting in unengaging plot developments, characters and writing that don’t feel timeless or environment-appropriate, and a basic and lacklustre climax. The writing doesn’t feel like it captures the atmosphere of Persia very well, not being modern exactly, but very much like an American production, which erases a good chunk of the franchise’s unique identity and leaves it coming across as fairly bland. With that said however, there is an element of goofiness around certain scenes in this movie that, to its credit, does add a touch of life and enjoyment into this film around its uninteresting story. The film was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who has been attached to several projects with a wacky edge like Top Gun, Con Air, Beverly Hills Cop, National Treasure, and The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, with the latter showing some of its colors in this film through how the characters act and how they work off each other. It’s a very stupid premise with dumb side quests, but the moments when it doesn’t take itself seriously and just feels like a corny video game movie are kinda fun to watch.

The characters are basically cut-outs and never stand out as unique individuals. The games didn’t have great characters, but they were memorable for what they were, and you remembered them from their designs, action and even some of their lines. Most of the portion surrounding the brothers is where things are quite dull, and its most of this section where the film is mostly disconnected from its source material as well as the least engaging. Most of the actors are very split in terms of quality. Jake Gyllenhaal is a definite wrong choice for the prince. Even ignoring the obvious factor that this character distinctly presented as a Persian prince is openly played by a white guy, his look, voice and even attitude does not feel like it fits into this world or this environment at all, coming across as too one-note generic and typical ”good-looking rouge” like you’d see in one of the stories the game was based on (but at least they knew to make it more period and environment appropriate). Even if his acting is usually perfect passable in most things, Gyllenhaal has barely ever been able to leave an impression and is always stuck playing very safe vanilla roles that do nothing to show him off, leaving him unable to lead this movie. Gemma Arterton is stuck with a very whiny character who doesn’t do a lot in the movie, her acting isn’t that much better to make the audience really like her, and the two don’t have that much chemistry and bicker back and forth like a rom-com couple. Considering what sources inspired the original games, these attributes can be a part of this story, but they need to be adapted to match the mood and atmosphere of this unique creation, and nothing about this stuff stands out. The side characters are thankfully, where the real entertainment comes from, and even if they still don’t match the spirit and energy of the games, they are at least fun to watch. Ben Kingsley, though nothing much character wise, is pretty entertaining as the bad guy and brings his usual acting chops to play it up, Alfred Molina as this crazy ostrich riding merchant is pretty entertaining and he at least feels like he fits into this world in a strange enough way, there’s a guy who’s a skilled knife thrower who also pretty cool, some of the side villains have cool abilities, it feels much more like an crazy video game film when they are on screen, whereas the other story set up is bizarre, but is also boring and uninteresting. If the main characters were allowed to be just as wild and insane as the side characters, we might be able to like them more.

The effects are not very good, but they do at least do some fun creative stuff with them which can distract the audience away from it, but also fit with how the game presented itself as well. The sand time effect whenever time is reversing is cool to see and it allows for more creative scenarios with the action and even some of the serious moment. Though it’s not used as much as it could have been, it picks up on this concept of using short time jumps throughout conflict both on a physical and even an dramatic level, which results in a few memorable scenes that take advantage of it and do something that you wouldn’t be able to get away with in other stories (like getting across that you’re telling the truth by killing yourself). The action is very stock and doesn’t feature too many things that are out of the ordinary for this genre. The stunts are once again very standard especially for a game that offer such motion and fast-paced wall-running intensity, nothing really captures that flow; it’s quite slow and uneventful. Sometimes when it incorporates the mystical weapons, it’s a bit more inventive and cooler and feeds into its style a bit better, but it’s not strong enough in the long run. The locations also look like re-cuts of other desert locations or temples, they never have enough time or establishment on an environment to give them any real identity. This is another unfortunate element as the way that the games showcased Persia in the earlier games with pretty fun and it left an impression from the building design to the unique grotto locales, from the color palette being very enriching depending on the environment’s mood, it worked very nicely and gave the game a unique style, which this film greatly lacks. The camera work by John Seale at times can feel a bit too intrusive and in your face. Being a Bruckheimer production, the film has a lot of shaky rushed zoom-in shots and rapid editing that never slows down to show off the action or the locations, so it comes across a cluttered and messy. Some of the far-off shots are nice and decently put together, but a lot of the film seems composed of them, so they get boring after a while.

Prince of Persia has the workings for a great film and to this film’s credit, it does come closer than others to working as a stand-alone product as it has some likeable elements that are at least watchable for the common audience member like some of the side characters are fun and the presentation of some of the mystical elements, but it just can’t get over the typical problems that plague these video game adaptations. The story is bland and all over the place, the leads are dull and annoying, the action for the most part is pretty uninteresting and generic, the environments weren’t shown off well, and while carrying the essence and basic structure of the game, it doesn’t properly emulate the game, which leaves the film better than most, but still good. It’s a mess, but is at least a slightly entertaining mess, decide for yourself if this film is worth your precious time.

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