Fun adventure, bad editing

Rating: 6/10 (31 May 2010)

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a light, highly entertaining popcorn flick with enough spectacle and imagination to keep you on a movie-sugar high for two hours. It's got the pace of a Pirates of the Caribbean flick, a plot that plays like Indiana Jones crossed with Aladdin, and some pretty nifty time travel. My biggest complaint is the action and editing. Newell and his editor could learn to sit back and let their action scenes breath; audiences WANT to see the skill/precision/choreography of a good sword or fist fight. Cutting so rapidly not only takes away from enjoying the action, but unnecessarily complicates the visual flow of the story. It might be to cover up Gyllenhaal's abilities, but surely a stunt double and some CG work could fix that?
No matter, Prince of Persia may not be high art, but it's a really fun guilty pleasure, and satisfied my fix for Indiana Jones-pulp adventure and time travel.