Reviews

With the second half of the film's title, it's obvious that Walt Disney Pictures would love for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time to kick off a new action-packed franchise. Reteaming again with producer Jerry Bruckheimer, they're clearly positioning this as the next Pirates of the Caribbean. And since it's inspired by a popular video game series dating back to 1989, the hope is that Prince of Persia has a strong built-in audience.

But that's all marketing rhetoric. I'd love to say POP: SOT is the first truly successful movie adaptation of a video game (at least it's better than most attempts) or that it's true to the source material (though faithful in spirit, the plot details are different), but who cares? Does any of that ultimately matter if the results yield another mediocre and forgettable summer blockbuster?

By Russ Breimeier

Behold! From the foul stenches of the forgotten genre of time, comes a rollicking fun Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, a modern CG-filled throwback to those silly Italian sword-and-sandal epics. A deceiving uncle; a man of destiny; a princess who is more than her looks; sword fights and across the desert adventures; yes, we've seen this all before, and better, but that doesn't stop the enjoyment of Prince of Persia. It's a film so keen on non-stop action, that it's entertaining in just that regard. It's brainless entertainment, a fun movie just like the promise of many on a hot summer day, that even in the chilly air conditioned theater, we rarely get. For that, we won't mind the film's flaws.

Don't get too hyped up based on my early praise. The film is rather standard, following Bruckheimer's own Pirates of the Caribbean films closely, and it all whizzes by in predictable fashion. But the first key to enjoying this film is getting by the non-Middle Eastern actors. Once you can buy the fact that you cannot have no-name Iranian actors as leads in a $150 million budgeted film, following a game Jake Gyllenhaal isn't all that bad. True, this is the 6th Century in Persia (now Iran), but hey, the Persian King rescues a young, English boy who has a noble heart, so let's roll with that. Once you do, the rest of the film is pound-for-pound pleasing as any other film of its ilk.

By Jon Peters