Big Picture Big Sound

Blather, Prince, and Repeat

In the interest of full disclosure: I was completely addicted to the first "Prince of Persia" video game. The year was 1989. In those days (as much as I hate to sound like Grampa Simpson, in this case I have no choice), you couldn't even save your game (really!). You had to have someone guard your Mac Classic while you ran to the dining hall to wolf down a quick meal. Finishing the game meant endless combinations of running, jumping, dodging, and more jumping. It was maddening, but I loved it. And we didn't ask for much more, in those days. Nowadays (I'll stop with the fogey-speak soon), video games are virtually indistinguishable from action movies. Then, of course, they're adapted into action movies. The next in line for that dubious distinction is my beloved "PoP" with "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time". Expecting a quality film from a movie based on a video game is as foolish as making the movie to begin with. And yet, here we are.

Now, I don't remember any "Sands of Time" in the original "Prince" game. Nor do I remember the main character resembling Jake Gyllenhaal, but so be it. In this live action adaptation, Mr. Gyllenhaal plays Prince Dastan, an orphan adopted by the Persian King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup). All the characters speak in varying British accents so, with the exception of a cool-looking ancient map during the opening credits, don't look for a history lesson here. Dastan is raised alongside his two royal brothers (Toby Kebbell and Richard Coyle, trying to be distinguishable) and their stoic uncle, played by Ben Kingsley (in case you're wondering if the character's going to be good or bad in the end).

Though not of royal genes, Dastan proves to be an inexplicably wily fighter, bouncing off walls and climbing armaments like some proto-Parkour master. This skill (which is really, aside from the title, the only tie to the video game) comes in pretty handy when sacking a neighboring city. The cheeky script - by Boaz Yakin, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard - has some fun winkingly setting up the siege as a search for a hidden cache of (ok, I'll say it) weapons of mass destruction. It turns out that much more nefarious things are in order revolving around a mystical dagger that can turn back time courtesy of some magical sand (yeah, that's as tough a sentence to write as it is to read).

But c'mon, this is a Disney movie based on a video game and, above all, it's a Hail Mary by the Mouse House to kick-start another franchise, a la "Pirates of the Caribbean". Bad news for Mickey, "Prince" is not that franchise. It is mildly diverting enough and features some killer comic relief by Alfred Molina, as a tax-evading Sheik, but there's hardly a scene - let alone a character - worth revisiting in a sequel. As for Mr. Gyllenhaal, he is sadly given no character to play. He's noble, smirky and good in a scuffle, but that's about the depth of it. His constant bickering with Gemma Arterton (as the insistently radiant Princess Tamina) is meant to be a throwback to the great romance-adventure pairings of decades ago (Harrison Ford/Karen Allen, Michael Douglas/Kathleen Turner). Sadly, they play more like a knock-off of Brendan Fraser/Rachel Weisz from that other sand-logged franchise, "The Mummy".

Of course, this film may not be aiming for much more. Director Mike Newell ("Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire") keeps the pace quick, sometimes appearing to cut a scene in mid-sentence, but he's basically just keeping the sand out of the actor's faces. I suppose there's something to be said for a movie that knows what it wants to be and strives for nothing more. It's both comforting in its predictability and depressing in its lack of ambition.