FINALLY, a good video game-based movie!

Rating: 6/10 (23 January 2012)

Okay, so this movie wasn't as successful as it was hoping to be, and it wasn't the absolute greatest acted or written movie...but for once, I'm judging this by mainstream, A-movie standards rather than the usual B-movie nonsense that comes with movie adaptions of video games. PoP: SoT has truly broken the mold of 20+ years of attempted video game movies that produced class-A failures like Mario Brothers, Alone in the Dark, Blood Rayne, and the Resident Evil series. Even as a big fan of the Sands of Time game series who was disappointed that the story and characters from the game were scrapped completely, I enjoyed the film. It was fun, there were good sword fights, good special effects, and it kept my attention. The storyline of the movie is more of a mash up of all the Prince of Persia games, not just the Sands of Time series. I get the impression that the writer of the movie and the games, Jordan Mechner, was always disappointed that his first PoP series was not as successful as it could have been and by combining that story with the more successful Sands of Time series, he created this movie (though this is a bit of speculation on my part). Usually doing things like that become trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, but Mechner did it pretty nicely.
Okay, the cons of this movie. First, Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton, had very little chemistry. It was painful and awkward to watch, and did not have the playful flirtation, nor the character development, found in their counterparts in the game, The Prince and Princess Farah. Alfred Molina's quasi-libertarian character as well as the thinly veiled anti-Iraq War message (going to war under false pretenses to seize weapons that don't exist) inserted politics in a movie that did not call for it. Political messages in movies have been done to death. Also, while a straight adaption of the Sands of Time game would essentially have produced a zombie movie set in Persia, there was very little attention paid to the actual Sands of Time and the dagger, and the movie is basically following the dagger as it changes hands over and over while the Prince is being chased based on wrongful accusation of murdering his father...it sort of feels like a mix of The Fugitive and What's Up Doc? but with swords and sandals. The writers of the movie could have found a middle ground.
Finally, as I said, I was disappointed to find out that the Sands of Time movie would NOT be following the Prince and Farah through the Palace of Azad as they tried to return the sands to the hourglass, all the while, slowly falling in the love. As I said before, a straight adaption would have resulted in another zombie movie, but rather than strip the story to its basic structure and pillars (that is, leaving the characters, setting, and basic story), the movie strips the story down all the way to its concept (a prince, a princess, and a dagger) and building from there. I don't think this was necessary as the game offered a lot more to work with in making a movie than what was used. I'm hoping perhaps in the future, another Prince of Persia movie will be made that sticks closer to the Sands of Time game's story (perhaps with THAT prince being the great-grandson of Dastan or something). But that's a pipe dream.
All in all though, I do recommend this movie. It's a good party movie, and it's one you can watch with most kids over age 10.