Hey!
Remember Prince
of Persia: The Sands of Time?
No, not the critically acclaimed (and damn hard) PlayStation 2
platformer, that came out in 2003 (which itself was a sort of reboot
of a series going back to 1989). I'm talking about the attempted
blockbuster epic adventure that was released in 2010. You don't
remember it? But it had Sir Ben Kingsley in it and stuff. (Be warned, I'm going to abuse a lot parentheses today.)
Plot
Prince
of Persia: The Sands of Time
features a bunch of tanned Caucasian “Persians” (and Ben
Kingsley) conquering the holy city of Alamut and in the process of
sort of looting it, one of the Princes in command of the army happens
upon a magic dagger, then gets framed for his father's death and goes
on the run with the Princess of Alamut. The two have a bickering
will-they-won't-they (of course they will) series of mishaps and
adventures, while also trying to clear the Prince's name and figuring
out how to refill a time travel dagger with magic sand. (that last
part is actually from the game, and not nearly as stupid as it
sounds.)
A
quick note about the Hollywood penchant for casting. Yes, it would be
nice if actors of appropriate ethnicities would be cast for those
ethnicities, but the nebulous “studio execs” are probably more
interested in using familiar names and faces to ensure people go “Oh,
that new Jake Gyllenhaal movie?” instead of “Oh, that weird
fantasy movie with a bunch of foreigners?” It's a tale as old as
cinema, and one probably based more on economic estimates than racism.
Characters
Prince
Dastan: Jake Gyllenhaal is our titular Prince, only not really. In
the beginning of the movie, he's a homeless streetrat with great
climbing skills and a heart of gold. So basically Disney's Aladdin.
Except this time his moxie is noticed by the King of Persia, who
takes him in and adopts him as a third son, making his origins as a
low class schlub effectively meaningless outside of a few
conversations. That part of his character could have been cut without
any consequence to the movie. As for the character himself, he's a
decent enough guy, who has the loyalty of his men, but he's also
dense as rocks, which propels the plot but gets a bunch of people
killed along the way. As for Gyllenhaal himself, he looks the part,
can move around well, but doesn't infuse the character with nearly
enough rogueish swagger to make him memorable.
Tamina:
Gemma Arterton is the princess of Alamut and charged with keeping the
sacred sands (and the dagger) safe, lest very bad things happen. Then
Dastan sneaks into her city, opens the gates, which leads to them
being conquered and her being taken prisoner. She's understandably
pissed, and gets stuck with Dastan. At first her constant paranoia
and betrayals of Dastan make sense, but after a certain point, it
gets old and lingers longer than her mistrust of him should. The two
don't really have great chemistry together.
King
Sharaman: Ronald Pickup plays Dastan's adoptive dad. Apparently a
benevolent and standup guy, he's not happy that his sons went out of
their way to attack Alamut when that wasn't part of the original
plan. Dastan is given a robe to give to his father as a gift, and
then said robe turns out to be poisoned and painfully burns Sharaman
to death, which is something more out of Greek myth than Persian, but
hey, you don't see it often so I'll let it slide. His death sets in
motion the real plot of the film.
Nizam:
Ben Kingsley plays the King's brother and the princes' uncle. He's a
royal vizier and Ben Kingsley, so, uh, spoiler alert: he's the bad
guy. Shocking, I know. Anyway, he's always fun to watch.
Tus:
Richard Coyle (Jeff from Coupling) plays the eldest Prince and
heir to the throne. A responsible, conscientious leader, he's kind of
a standup guy. But still, he's Jeff from Coupling, so I sat
there the whole time thinking about the giggle loop and the Melty
Man. Bit of a dissonance.
Garsiv:
Toby Kebbell plays Tus' hotheaded younger brother and head of the
military. Kind of an arrogant jerk for most of the movie, but not
really that bad of a guy.
Sheik
Amar: Alfred Molina in glorious ham mode as a shady merchant who runs
“the Valley of the Slaves” a horrible place with a deadly
reputation that he cooked up so he can avoid paying taxes and run his
own fantasy Persian Las Vegas, with ostrich races and hookers. The
character is a collage of anachronisms and weirdness, but it doesn't
matter because Molina going to town on the scenery is the best thing
in the whole movie.
Seso:
Steve Toussaint plays Sheik Amar's soft-spoken henchman. A member of
the Ngbaka tribe famed for knife-throwing skills, he first comes off
as dumb muscle but turns into Amar's conscience and a capable ally
for the Prince. Actually, the friendship between Amar and Seso has
more chemistry and is more convincing than Dastan and Tamina's
relationship. So much so that Sheik Amar's often flippant boast “Have
I told you about the Ngbaka?” speech eventually becomes the most
poignant and moving line in the entire movie at a certain point.
Visuals
Directed
by Mike Newell (who directed one of the better Harry Potter films
along with Donnie Brasco and Four Weddings and a Funeral),
the film features lots
of brown and gold. And sand, obviously. Some of this is a product of
post-processing and digital coloring and filters and CGI and stuff,
which is understandable, but it doesn't make the color palette any
less drab. This is disappointing, since the special “making-of”
featurette shows more greenery and color when discussing location
scouting. That made me sad.
As
for the visual effects that go with this kind of movie, they're kind
of forgettable. The first (and second) time Dastan uses the dagger,
its an interesting effect of rewinding time that echoes how the game
did it a little. There is nothing outright bad about the
special effects (though the somewhat silly Hassansin squad gets
pretty close with their gimmicks), but nothing I'd consider
memorable. The same goes for the art direction: competent yet
forgettable. There are no monster designs to speak of (disappointing
considering the high fantasy tone) and the fight scenes are adequate
without standing out.
Stuff
happens, it looks all right, and then more all right looking stuff
happens. This is a shame, considering that ancient Persia is not
something usually touched upon in big Hollywood movies.
Writing
Based
on Prince
of Persia: The Sands of Time,
scree story by Prince
of Persia
creator Jordan Mechner, and screenplay by Boaz Yakin and Doug Miro &
Carlo Bernard. The most interesting plot bits are the ones taken
from the video game. A magical dagger that can turn back time is a
really neat concept, both in terms of game mechanics and narrative
touches. Everything else feels like generic fantasy ADVENTURE
elements. Everyman rises to a position of privileged authority, goes
on ADVENTURE to clear his name and stop a coup and along the way gets
to bicker with a hot princess that knows where the magic sand is that
can refill the time dagger. Even so, something more could be made out
of those plot elements and this movie doesn't. Instead I spent a lot
of time thinking about how it was jarring that slavery was mentioned
several times despite Persia being considerably less interested in
keeping slaves than its neighbors like, oh, let's say Greece (Don't
believe me? Read up on the helots. That's some depressing stuff.).
The
rest of the movie was spent wondering why the movie went out of its
way to establish Dastan as a street rat orphan with great parkour
skills and a heart of gold, except instead of a monkey in a fez and a
flying carpet he gets adopted by the king and elevated to the status
of a prince. This serves no true narrative purpose beyond a few
references here and there. It could have been cut from the movie
without affecting anything except shaving off about ten minutes of
runtime. Just have him be the youngest son who's a black sheep
because he's a bit of wild rebel who doesn't take his position as
seriously as his older brothers so he gets restless and does
something stupid and then has to clean up his mess. That's motivation
enough for most fairy tales, and all of those elements are in the
movie. Hell, the motivation for the assassination of the king is
actually quite elegant (and petty, but hey, its regicide) in its
simplicity.
Instead
we get some bullshit about him being some everyman commoner, except
he's not. He's an orphan with exceptional climbing ability and a
reckless courage. Yes, this kind of exceptionalism does show up in
folklore a lot, but its perfectly fine for your protagonist to be an
exceptional individual with a simple or undefined backstory. IndianaJones is a pulp archeologist who's great with a whip and a mean right
hook. John McLane is an overworked, cynical cop estranged from his
family but succeeds due to cunning and stubborness. Robin Hood is an
altruistic nobleman and marksman who becomes outraged by injustice
and decides to do something about it. These are great characters
because of their exceptional deeds and outsized personalities. Dastan
only gets a few chances to really be a character, like when he's
trying to lie to Sheik Amar about his real identity, realizes that
its not working, laughs sheepishly and then makes a run for it. If
the movie was more like that scene it would have been much better.
Oh,
and one more thing, in a movie where the major plot device can
magically turn back time, it kind of telegraphs how the ending's
going to go.
Sounds
Music
by Harry Gregson-Williams. He's done much better work. Like so much
else in the movie, it is serviceable but ultimately forgettable.
Verdict
Prince
of Persia: The Sands of Time is
a functional piece of movie that does what it intends to. It looks
fine and holds together reasonably well, much like a solid chair.
Also like a solid chair, you don't really think about it unless you
are making a deliberate effort to analyze it for its strengths and
weaknesses and so you can judge it by its merits, but only lunatics
do that sort of thing.
…
...ahem...
What
I mean to say is that Prince of Persia feels like it was made
with a checklist in hand and then a bunch of competent people were
told to go make what was on the checklist. That makes it merely average and forgettable, which is a miracle for video game based movies.
