Decent and entertaining enough

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2010)

The video game genre isn't the most compelling genre to transfer into the big screen, considering mostly that most of the video games adaptations has turned out as mediocre movies. With "Prince of Persia", on the other hand, it looked like something more spectacular, mostly because of it's visuals and stunning effects and also considering that this was a Jerry Bruckheimer film. So this film looked a bit promising.
Most of the time, "Prince of Persia" does what its supposed to do; Delivering some action-filled, fast paced entertainment, to keep the attention of the audience during 116 minutes. While it doesn't becomes something beyond that, it makes a nice watch. But the story starts off as a little monotonic and doesn't take off after twenty minutes or so. But the rest of the film does makes up for that, with some exciting fights and a exciting plot with some clever twists, in spite of a bit frenetic screenplay.
I've never quite pictured Jake Gyllenhall as a sword fighting Persian hero, but he does comes across as passable enough in his part. Although this is far from his most complex role, he has enough charm and screen presence to pass himself during 116 minutes. Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton), the obligatory love interest, is fiery and intelligent, but doesn't comes off as a memorable character - although the obligatory love plot starts off in a unconventional way. The rest of the cast are decent in their parts, but none of them stands particularly out.
I shall honestly confess that I don't have much knowledge about the original video game, but I still saw a few references to a video game during the film; the way Prince Dastan fought, jumping from rooftop to rooftop and twirling on sticks, which was noteworthy (and funny) at first, but not particularly distracting. While the fast-paced closeups and slow motions comes off as unnecessary, the film does however have some nice visuals, a solid, Arabic-inspired score by Harry Gregson-Williams (though this isn't his very best score) and some nice special effects, which makes up for it.
Otherwise, this adaptation of "Prince of Persia" may not be a unforgettable motion picture experience, but it's still a watchable and entertaining way to pass 116 minutes with.