Dir: Mike Newell, 2010
Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) must protect a mystical dagger that has the power to turn back time, clear his name of his father's murder, and avoid being outwitted by Tamina (Gemma Arterton) the striking princess whose job it is to guard the knife.
I wanted to love this movie. I wanted to sink into the plush seat, recline and be enveloped in the sword play, the romance, the flowy garb. I wanted to gallop through the dessert on a noble steed. And I halfway did, but something held me back.
The fight scenes are intense, the action sequences well-paced and exciting enough. The chemistry between Dastan and Tamina is often palpable, if a bit contrived and rushed. This has more to do with the fact that Gyllenhaal's smiles sizzle like midday in the desert and Arterton radiates a fiery (although not warm) beauty, than with anything else. The bad guys are pretty transparent and one-dimensional and the good guys aren't much meatier. But, it's a movie based on a video game, so depth of character isn't really the point. The dialogue is dull — the script is awful — aside from the pseudo-Libertarian, anti-tax rantings of ostrich racing entrepreneur Sheikh Amar (Alfred Molina).
The best part of the movie, by the way, is the comic relief provided by the ostrich racing. Ostriches are hilarious creatures to see doing anything in a movie. In Prince of Persia, the big birds run amok and wear masks (ok, only one wears a mask).
One of my main issues with the movie is the feeling that many of the actors in it are too good for the script and know that in almost every scene. Kingsley and Molina hide it well enough, but there are times when Gyllenhaal's face betrays a little "Who talked me into this? I can't believe I have to say that!" I love him and it pains me to say this, but he's less than great in this movie. His body is amazing, he's got the mischievous look of the rough-and-tumble-street-kid-turned-prince down and he looks like he's having fun, but there is something disengaged (and disengaging) about the way he plays Dastan. He never seems fully committed or cognizant of what's at stake. Maybe because he's used to playing characters with depth and range and Dastan just isn't that compelling, maybe because the script is boring or maybe the editing is just bad. Hey, not everyone's cut out for action-adventure heroics, but I'm still glad it was Gyllenhaal and not someone like, say, llama look-a-like Taylor Lautner, even though the Twilight heartthrob has more experience with bad scripts.
I neither recommend nor denounce Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. I simply hope they don't make a sequel.
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