A deep abyss of nostalgia-killing terrorism.

Rating: 3/10 (7 March 2011)

Think about Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings". This is a high standard fantasy epic. "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" could have lived up to this, and built a cult fan base obsessed with merchandise and limited edition extra releases, poster covered bedrooms, to be remembered dearly; if it wasn't made so carelessly.
I went to see the film with my friends. We shared nostalgia: our stories from childhood with the Prince of Persia computer games. They were excellent games, that beautifully embodied the golden feeling and spiritual fantasy of ancient Persia. The games were so clever, so intriguing - so it was fair enough that our expectations for the film were pretty high.
And what a disappointment.
The film was soul destroyingly bad. I enjoyed, perhaps, the first scene; but it went mostly downhill from there. The legendary computer games we had once known had been Disney-fied - and their characters, turned into McDonalds Happy Meal toys.
Some of the acting was just shameful, and the casting of Jake Gyllenhaal was hugely foolish. The picture was filthily plagued with technical problems, like slow motion shots that were flickering like twitching flamingos, evidently shot at an inadequate frame rate; countless laughable, distracting errors in continuity (like in one scene, the same man displaced three metres back and forth between shots); and we could even see the label on the ancient Persian mans turban. Come on, seriously. Some of the visual effects, however, were stunning, and I greatly enjoyed some of the action scenes. These parts of the film were particularly well managed and showed some cleverness. I also enjoyed Ben Kingsleys performance.
Although at one point the film was so boring, I slowly walked out to go the toilet, smiling merrily with a skip in my step through what I could tell was supposed to be intriguing tension. But it wasn't, it was ridiculous.
But a good watch for the shallow-minded.
The computer games left us astounded - the film left us laughing at how awful it was. This has spoiled the Prince of Persia franchise, and I hope another instalment might redeem itself.
If I wrote this around the time I watched the film, I would have maybe given it a six as everything in the cinema was pretty poor at that time. But then out came "Inception", and I remembered again, "The Lord Of The Rings". And that's a review for another time.
Three, and I'm being generous. Awful, with some good bits.
But keep your money. Honestly.