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Films based on videogames don’t always turn out to be the big hit blockbuster of the year, but look what Disney and mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer did with a theme park ride. In Pirates of the Caribbean, however, they had an ace up their sleeve – Johnny Depp. Without a stand-out character such as this in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Bruckheimer and Disney are unable to recreate the magic.
The story revolves around young Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), a former street urchin adopted by the King of Persia as his own son. Fifteen years later Dastan is on the run after being accused of his father’s murder, but he has bigger problems in the shape of a mystical dagger that has the power to turn back time. Fleeing with Dastan is the dagger’s protector, Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton), as both try to clear Dastan’s name and stop the dagger from falling into the wrong hands.
Gyllenhaal has been quoted as saying that he wants to be taken less seriously as an actor, after years of starring in dramatic films such as Brokeback Mountain and Brothers. After buffing up for this film he does make a convincing action star, with an impressive English accent that is the standard in Hollywood for far off countries set long, long ago. And if he wants to be taken less seriously, then he’s picked the right film.
Prince of Persia is trying to be so many films, but never succeeds as any of them. The beginning is reminiscent of The Mummy, Aladdin and The Mask of Zorro all rolled into one. But where all three had a sense of fun, this was also backed up with a witty script and decent acting. Prince of Persia unfortunately has neither.
The dialogue is clunky from the beginning and there’s lots of talk about destiny. Try as they might, the actors cannot do anything with the words except make them sound robotic. Example: ordering an attack upon the city of Alamut, Prince Tus (Richard Coyle) then proceeds to shout “Yeah!”, as if he were in a Die Hard film. The witty one-liners aren’t very witty, and the funniest thing in the film is an ostrich with a hat on. No, really. All the best one-liners are given to Alfred Molina as a Cockney-Arab “small business man”. Molina, one of the best British actors around, and one of the most underrated, steals the film in his scenes, showing the others how it’s done.
Arterton fares less well. Her Princess Tamina is a gutsy heroine in the action sequences, but Arterton has no comic timing in the scenes that are meant to be funny. It also appears that Gyllenhaal has a more natural English accent than she does, which is unfortunate as Arterton is English. Coyle, as Dastan’s older brother Tus, cannot handle the move from TV to a big-budget movie, but Ben Kingsley enjoys hamming it up as wily Uncle Nizam. The ‘twist’ is hardly surprising when it comes, as Kingsley cannot stay restrained in the background for too long.
The illogical plot – with random shots inserted into places that make no sense – doesn’t really matter, as all we’re really there for are acrobatic swordfights and big special effects, but even these don’t deliver. The swordplay is enjoyable and works well, but when CGI is obvious, then it is poor CGI. Some of the camera’s movements stick too closely to the ‘based-on-a-videogame’ premise, and somebody must have fallen asleep on the slow-mo button as it is used too frequently and in all the wrong places.
Bruckheimer and Disney have tried to bring us another Pirates of the Caribbean, with a dash of The Mummy thrown in for good measure, but instead we are offered a lot of unfulfilled potential. With that subtitle, however, it is clear that this isn’t the last we’ll see of Prince Dastan.
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