Very silly

Rating: 4/10 (20 August 2013)

PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME is the movie adaptation of a long-running video game about a character who embraces an ancient form of Parkour; the game invariably involved having him jump from ledge to ledge and platform to platform, making his way through myriad scenarios in a quest for riches.
Unfortunately this turns out to be an exercise in movie-making that is both generic and soulless. The plot seems to have been inspired by the likes of PIRATES OF THE Caribbean, taking its characters through a series of frankly unbelievable situations and dealing out oodles of mind-numbing action sequences which are filled with effects and little else. There's no style in sight and director Mike Newell brings the same level of disconnected coldness to the characters as he did in HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE.
Jake Gyllenhaal's wooden hero Dastan is uncomfortable enough but the real embarrassment is in the shape of the comely Gemma Arterton, who delivers a performance of such excruciating awfulness that it brings to mind her best-forgotten antics in QUANTUM OF SOLACE. Arterton's plummy accent and stilted delivery combine with her vapid character to make her the most grating love interest yet seen in a movie, instantly dragging the film's rating down a point.
Serviceable special effects fill the screen with all manner of sparkling wonder yet none of it means anything, and the plot is so slight as to be not worth mentioning. Ben Kingsley's villain is straight from a pantomime, complete with twirling moustaches, and I find it a little sad that ALL of the major cast members are played by western actors, rendering the Middle Eastern history a joke. I'll surprise nobody when I report that PRINCE OF PERSIA is a film best forgotten.