Fantasy flick- worth a pick!

Rating: 8/10 (5 June 2010)

After watching The clash of The Titans a couple of months back, and being very disappointed with a film that was predictably high on cgi, but totally lacked the magical feeling that the first one had (and that should be felt when watching films of this genre), I was sceptical but remained optimistic when I heard this character from fantasy folklore was making his debut on the big screen. I'm not an avid follower of the computer game, only loosely knowing the story so went into the cinema with an open mind and can say that 'Prince of Persia' is quite a good movie.
It has elements of the old Indiana Jones films in the love/hate cheeky banter between the leading actor/actress (Jake Gylenhall/Gemma Arterton), the search for treasure, which becomes more complicated when the co-stars bump into dodgy characters along the way and find themselves in compromising situations and the middle eastern settings of the film.
Gylenhall has never struck me as the typical action man and is a long way away from the nerdy kid in Donnie Darko, but he has bulked up a bit and does a good job as the adopted young prince (Dastan). While a credible cast including Ben Kingsley (Gandhi) as the unassuming Kings brother (Nizam), Alfred Molina (Dr Octopus- Spiderman 2) as Sheikh Amar, a wheeling-dealing, eccentric entrepreneur and other familiar actors put in a decent performance to make their characters believable enough to enjoy the movie for the fantasy adventure flick that it is.
Don't expect mythical creatures such as in Lord of the Rings, Sinbad etc, because you won't get it. There are however, a good use of special effects, but not to the detriment of the storyline/flow as I've felt with a lot of other big budget films in recent times.
What more can I say without giving too much away? It's a good popcorn movie, definitely worth a watch- go see it!