FILMREVIEW: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Time was when Disney mined the finest fiction writers – Robert Louis Stevenson, JM Barrie and Rudyard Kipling to name but three – for inspiration. But most classic novels have now been rendered in celluloid already, and 21st-century filmmakers are left to re-heat old pickings – see the 278th movie version of Robin Hood, out this week – or look elsewhere for material. So behold Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – idea from a computer game. You might be thinking that games are not particularly strong on plot and characterization, the two main building blocks of good movies. And add Wham-Bam Jerry Bruckheimer as producer, and you may detect a clue that this is not going to be the most cerebrally demanding two hours you’ll ever spend in a cinema.

Nevertheless, to Persia, in the year of our lord 500 AD, or thereabouts. It was a time of war. The Persians are poised to invade a far-flung, dusty, holy city, because they think it is hiding weapons. They’re not sure though. Stretch your imaginations, viewers, because clearly nothing like this could ever happen in real life. Perish the thought!

As established earlier, none of our dramatis personae are particularly deep; in fact, most can be described in two words. So we have our protagonist Jake Gyllenhaal (Urchin Prince), adopted and brought into the royal fold by Ronald Pickup (Wise King) and Ben Kingsley (Scheming Uncle). Jake, or Dastan as we should call him, is led against his better judgment to help his two brothers, Tus (Immature Heir) and Garsiv (Other Brother) invade the city, presided over by Gemma Arterton (Feisty Princess). When victory turns to tragedy, and Dastan is wrongly branded a traitor, he suspects Tus of setting him up. But it soon becomes clear that Scheming Uncle is the real culprit (I’m not giving anything away here – not only is Ben Kingsley wearing eye liner, but every time the king is banging on about the importance of brotherly loyalty, the camera switches to old Sir Ben looking shifty). And camp Uncle Nizam’s wicked plot goes beyond the pursuit of personal power – it could bring about nothing less than The End Of The World.

It all centers on a magic dagger, which has the power to turn back time. Unfortunately, this has the unintended effect of removing much of the tension – and, let’s face it, we pretty much know how it’s going to turn out anyway – from the story: so what if a good character dies when time can just be reversed to prevent it happening?

But the plot and character flaws are drowned out in a tsunami of soaring production values. This swashbuckling sword-‘n’-sandals action-fest bulges with lavish locations, dynamic fight sequences and an ear-popping soundtrack that make it a visual and aural feast. Prince of Persia has grand ambitions and expends a lot of sound and fury on pursuing them. It’s no epic, but the trio of leads are watchable in their roles, the set-piece scenes are proficient, if lacking in narrative justification, and the Disney-Bruckheimer alliance delivers all the mindless, inflated action a popcorn flick needs.