Might be enjoyed by children and gamers

Rating: 5/10 (20 May 2010)

Jerry Bruckheimer strolled on stage in front of the massive Leicester Square Odeon screen with the director Mike Newell and both men were thrown bubblegum questions by television's Alex Zane. Five minutes of obliged gushing followed: gushing about the film, gushing about its stars, gushing about each other. I half expected a man with a mop and bucket to follow these gentlemen on stage, such was the gushing. That's Hollywood, I guess.
The night before this press screening of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time ("PoP:TSoT") I had attended the BBC's election party, the consequence of which was getting only two hours' sleep, a monster hangover and the worst working day of my professional career to date. So I entered the cinema in a semi-vegetative state with an exhausting headache. It may have been because of this predicament that, against all expectations, I rather enjoyed the movie. Indeed, my mental activity was probably akin to that of the film's target audiences: children and video-gamers, no disrespect meant to either group.
PoP has been a popular platform computer game since the early 90s and this aspect of the character's history is represented faithfully in the film - it has a very gamey feel to it. Impressive parkour allows the Prince to leap around the film as if he were being controlled a skilled 'gamer'. The dialogue is, for the most part, cumbersome and lazy, just like the tedious interludes in a computer game when the play stops and you are transported into a conversation with an informative avatar, except in the film you can't press A to skip. There are little outcrops of humour in the script but these very much feel as though they have been crow-barred in to later drafts, rather than having been woven in to the original.
The plot goes a little like this. Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) must run away from his family and his country as he has been falsely accused of doing a bad thing. For an unknown reason he grabs the Princess (Gemma Arterton) on his way out and whisks her away with him. So they start out on the run, being chased by angry Persians. At the beginning, of course, the Prince and the Princess don't seem to get along, as is the way with all uncreative screen romances but rest assured by the end of the film they get along famously. The main body of the film follows them desperately evading their hunters, getting into various scrapes along the way and it's all quite exciting, especially when the unit of menacing Persian black-ops 'Hassassins' are unleashed. The CGI-laden grand finale sequence is pure, unbelievable fantasy which cements the film in the 'children' genre.
PoP:TSoT was filmed in Pinewood Studios, England (and also in Morocco, Africa) so most of the cast are British. Perhaps this explains Gyllenhaal's use of an English accent - poor old Jake just wants to fit in with us Limeys. The accent is perfectly acceptable and his performance is good considering this is his first dig at an action hero. Arterton's face is well cast as the beautiful princess and her acting is less pouty than Bruckheimer's other muse (Keira Knightley), although still a little bit pouty. Sir Ben Kingsley doesn't seem out of place as the Prince's trusted uncle and his fee from this performance will presumably see him through his next ten low budget art house ventures.
Having cat-o-nine-tailed the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise to death, Bruckheimer has simply used the same formula and plonked it into a Persian theme, except this version is lot less snappy, lazier (probably to do with the absence of Johnny Depp). However, it is a mildly enjoyable action romp if you go in expecting just that, and it will surely be one of the summer's smash hits. If you're looking for mental stimulation then you will be disappointed. In fact, if you aren't a child or a gamer, it might be best to drink a lot (responsibly) and deprive yourself of sleep the night before viewing.
Originally reviewed at www.thedooleyreview.co.uk