Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (May 28, 2010):PG-13
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios
Opening Weekend Box-Office: #3 with $30.1 million
Domestic Box-Office Gross to-date: $90,100,578
Gross Revenue: $328,516,152
Budget: $200 million
Director: Mike Newell; Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer
In addition to movies, I’m a pretty big video game fan, and though I never played the Prince of Persia series, I fully respect its influence and success within the gaming world. Many video games have great stories, but for the most part, translating those stories or even variants of those stories to the silver screen have often resulted in failure. Sure, there have been some decent and successful video game adaptations, such as Resident Evil and Tomb Raider, but for every acceptable entry, there are a laundry list of failures…to name a few: Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter, Doom, Silent Hill, BloodRayne, and House of the Dead (the last two were directed by German filmmaker Uwe Boll, who keeps making absolutely awful movies…seriously, how does this guy keep getting funding?). On the other end of the spectrum, trying to make video games of popular films to release alongside the theatrical presentation is also a common marketing practice, and more often the not, the games are rushed through development with little concern for quality. Movies and video games, two popular entertainment mediums, but historically, they have not mixed well. So, needless to say, a big-budget summer movie based on a relatively unknown video game series is a bit of a gamble.
From a marketing perspective, it is obvious that a video game movie is aimed at the male teen and young adult demographic, but the main strategy also involved playing off the union of Jerry Bruckheimer and Walt Disney Studios…. Bruckheimer is responsible for a staggering amount of popular movies and television (CSI, The Amazing Race, Con Air, Black Hawk Down, Armageddon…just to name a few), but Bruckheimer and Disney together translate to one series, Pirates of the Caribbean. In 2003, the idea of a movie based on a theme park ride seemed ridiculous (and 2003’s Haunted Mansion proved that this notion was not entirely unfounded…oh Eddie Murphy, you ruined another movie), but with Johnny Depp, an impressive story, and stunning special effects, a legendary series was born. If Disney and Bruckheimer can make money based off of pirate animatronics, it’s not that far of a stretch to think that a video game movie could be done well. From a casting standpoint, I have no problem with Jake Gyllenhall as an actor, though I confess being doubtful that he could carry an action movie as the title character, Gemma Arterton is easy on the eyes, and well, Sir Ben Kingsley is an amazing actor…so either the movie actually is good or Ben was in desperate need of a paycheck. My curiosity was piqued, so I knew I had to see it.
As far as the plot goes, I hate to say that Prince of Persia is pretty generic, Jake Gyllenhall plays Dastan, a street peasant turned adopted prince of the Persian Empire…if Dastan’s introductory scene doesn’t remind you of a near identical scene from Disney’s Aladdin, then you’ve sadly forgotten your childhood. Long story short, Dastan is framed for the murder of the king by his evil uncle Nizam (Ben Kingsley), so he must dodge assassins and authorities as he tries to clear his name, all with the help of a beautiful princess (Gemma Arterton), and a wise cracking sidekick (Alfred Molina, in a funnier role than I’ve seen him in for a while). While this all sounds painfully generic, the unique part of the story comes from the element that made the video game series so popular, time control. Dastan has a dagger that grants him the ability to make small jumps back in time, and the special effects during these time-travel sequences are pretty impressive. At just under 2 hours, Prince of Persia takes a little too long to tell this story, but as far as popcorn flicks go, with special effects and action sequences go, it keeps you entertained.
When someone thinks of Jake Gyllenhall, action star is not the first descriptive that usually comes to mind, but surprisingly enough, Jake holds his own and convincingly plays the hero to enough of a point that you actually forget that this is the same guy who was in Bubble Boy. It’s easy to see why Sony Pictures was considering Jake as a replacement for Tobey McGuire when it was unclear if Tobey would return as Peter Parker in the second Spider-Man movie…sure they look alike, but as a bonus, now I know that Jake could have actually carried the film had the switch been made. In terms of the rest of the cast, Ben Kingsley is a convincing villain and Alfred Molina is entertaining, but I have mixed feelings about Gemma Arterton. First off, it was driving me nuts throughout the film as I tried to figure out where I had seen here before. To my great surprise, it turns out that she was Agent Strawberry Fields in 2008’s Quantum of Solace…you remember her, the obligatory female that Bond beds before she is killed and drenched in oil…yes, that was her. Wow, didn’t recognize her…talk about an upgrade. As I said earlier, she provides significant eye candy, but it doesn’t go much beyond that…there was a small amount of chemistry between her and Gyllenhall, but it seemed that by the time the film’s climax was reached, her only role was to scream the hero’s name over and over again as he navigated dangerous obstacles.
In terms of box-office receipts, Dastan failed to topple Shrek, and with so many new films coming down the pipe, its unlikely that we’re going to see any numbers jump. During a summer movie season, its hard to stay at #1 past one weekend (unless you’re a green ogre), so Prince only had about one week to make its money…luckily, the international reception was strong, so Prince of Persia covered its budget, but that’s hardly enough to justify a sequel. Above all, you don’t have to be a fan of the video game series or video games in particular to enjoy Prince of Persia. It’s a little long and the plot is weak in parts, but it is still an entertaining film. Is it something you should rush out of the house to see? No. Is it the best action movie we’ll see this summer? Probably not. But, if you’re looking for something entertaining at the movie theater, this adaptation gets the job done.
Overall Recommendation: Medium
