Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (movie)

There's not too much to be said about this movie so I'll keep it short. Which of course means this is going to be much longer than I intend....

Prince of Persia is based on the deservedly popular video game series of the same name, starting back in the side scrolling adventure days up until modern times. The basic premise of the Sands of Time video game (a reboot to the series) was that you played a rather smart-alecky prince who is tricked by the evil Vizier into unleashing a devastating force called the Sands of Time from an hourglass, which transforms everyone but him, the Vizier, and the princess of the city they conquered that contained the sands, into monsters. The prince then spends the game trying to right his wrong and return the sand to the hourglass with the help of the snarky princess.

The movie is...loosely based on that. Instead of a nameless prince we get Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), who instead of being of royal blood was adopted into the royal family as a kid when the king stumbled upon him in the market doing some crazy acrobatics to outrun some guards. Why? Because he was being brave or something like that, or the all around cop out in this movie "IT WAS HIS DESTINY". Anyways, fast forward several years and the Persians decide to storm the holy city of Alamut based on suspicions that they are giving weapons to the enemies of Persia. The recalcitrant princess of the city (Gemma Arterton) sends a man with a precious dagger to try and escape the city, but Dastan intercepts him and takes the dagger, which has a strange kind of sand in the handle. Then the king is suddenly killed by a set of poisoned robes with Dastan presented as a gift, though they were from his eldest brother, and soon Dastan is running for his life with the princess who helped him escape, unraveling the conspiracy behind the king's death and the mysteries of the sands.

The plot may be completely different, but thankfully a lot of the personality of the game and its characters remains. There's a lot of high flying acrobatics, antagonizing remarks between the princess and the prince, and even a welcome addition in the eccentricities of a Sheik played by Alfred Molina. Unfortunately Ben Kingsley, as he always seems to be in these kinds of movies, is woefully underused as they spend most of the movie hiding the fact that he's the main villain and then barely letting him do anything but look uncomfortable around some deadly assassins once he is revealed.

Still, the action is over the top and quite entertaining, with several likable and other likable enough characters to keep the movie afloat. For the most part it's very much a standard Hollywood action flick, and I just couldn't help shake the feeling that it was a lot like Pirates of the Carribean (which makes sense considering it's a Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney production) without Jack Sparrow. Gyllenhaal is quite likable as the Prince, but he's not a standout. Basically all the elements of the movie all work together fine (besides some indifferent supporting cast performances), but there's nothing that pushes it beyond into something great. It's certainly better than most crap, especially video game based crap, that rolls out of Hollywood, but not by much.

Price of Persia: The Sands of Time movie gets a 7/10.