A cursed genre if there ever was one

Rating: 2/10 (29 May 2010)

I'll start off by saying that I am a video game fan and have been ever since I was a small boy playing Super Mario 3 for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Unlike a lot of my contemporaries, I did not "grow out" of it after entering puberty. Sure, I loved nudity and girls but I was still a big gamer. Can't say I'd put the Prince of Persia series amongst my top 5 but I can say I always enjoyed the game-play and storyline. That, I cannot say for the film adaptation.
What is it about video games? Why are they so hard to translate to the big screen? If a movie about a fat Italian plumber who jumps on turtles isn't a masterpiece and actually turns into one of the biggest pieces of excrement to ever be internationally released, well that's no surprise at all. But one with such a rich storyline like POP? You have to start wondering.
This wasn't directed by untalented good for nothing directors like Uwe Boll (Who I hope doesn't beat the crap out of me after reading this). Mike Newell is actually a 30 year pro who's made decent to good flicks like Donnie Brasco (Also starring Gyllenhall). So you can't just blame the poor quality of the film on the director. Maybe video game films are not to be.
The Sands of Time does not have any interesting characters. None of the protagonists are developed the least bit to make the audience care for them. It also might have been a mute film. The dialogue was more poor than Sierra Leone. Not one good line that stays with you during this whole 116 minutes.
And what's worse (At least for a movie with a 200 million dollar budget), the action was horrible. Those were some of the worst A-Movie fight scenes I've ever seen. They were going for an epic feel to make you gasp but really, the only thing that made me gasp was that I actually stayed until the end.
I would not recommend this movie to anyone with at least a sub-par standard. If you want to see a video game movie, just rent Mortal Kombat which at least has a cool techno song. Persian or Arab film? Heck, Alladin beats this one out of the park. Yes, Disney's Alladin.
The only redeeming factor in this (And I'm being very liberal with the use of the term) is Alfred Molina's character.
Here we have Gandhi, who gained independence for his country by peaceful protest. But not even he could save this.