You'll want to rewind two hours

Rating: 3/10 (27 May 2010)

I remember playing the original Prince of Persia on the Amiga 500. It was a race against time to rescue a princess from an evil vizier. And that was it. No time-bending; no art du déplacement. Just fencing and jumping and pits of spikes.
The new tie-in from increasingly hack-like director Mike Newell is based on more recent incarnations, of course. But however complex modern videogames have become, it's not that interesting to watch someone else play a computer game, and that's basically what you get here. The Sands of Time element involves a dagger with a button which rewinds time by a few seconds. You can imagine a young Spielberg revelling in a craftily-written scene in which the smouldering heroes bicker and flirt, jostling events to out-do one another, subtly subverting our expectations whilst satisfying our need to be entertained. This script (the product of four minds, including original PoP creator, Jordan Mechner) gets the bickering and flirting bit, but there's none of the craft.
In fact, the script is downright lame. Lots of plot, yes, but written so thuddingly, and with so much exposition, that none of the boring characters have a chance to do any acting. Least of all Sir Ben Kingsley, who seems to be having zero fun as the sinister patriarch. There's some wit in Alfred Molina's Sheik Amar, but ultimately his presence only serves to remind us that the aforementioned Mr Spielberg made a vastly superior action adventure 28 years ago.
Indeed, Raiders of the Lost Ark spawned a phenomenal franchise. Disney and Bruckheimer may hope for similar affection, or at least the dollars of the Pirates machine - but I fear they'll receive neither.