Review: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Before I say anything about this movie I have to ask: has anyone else noticed this summer movie season has started out as a string of basically copies of other movies? I mean, we got Iron Man 2 which was basically the first one with a bit more pizazz and then came Robin Hood which was Gladiator (but not as good or violent). And then we have literal copies or "sequels" like Shrek 4 and Sex and the City 2. Seriously, this is getting boring. I guess I'll just have to wait for Inception to get something new AND cool.

But not too fast cuz there's still this movie to discuss. So I don't know how many people are aware of this but this IS based on a video game. And it's not completely terrible like every other video game adaptation! In fact, I was pleasantly surprised.

What we have here is this guy, Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), who gets adopted by the King of Persia at a young age and saved from the streets to live in the palace along with the king's other two sons, Tus and Garsiv. Of course he's rambunctious (great word) and daring and unruly and just generally not very "prince" like. This all comes into play when he decides to go against the orders of his brother Tus when the Persian army is invading the holy city of Alamut. Apparently these Alamut guys have been making weapons for enemies of Persia so naturally, the Persians attack them. But Dastan goes on a secret mission to attack the city from the side and lets the Persian army in to win the city! whoo! high-five Prince Dastan! But wait! "We weren't making weapons!" says Tamina (Gemma Arterton) the holy Princess of Alamut. Uh-oh. Is there a conspiracy happening here? Oh and btw, Dastan finds this nice shiny dagger during the battle that may or may not be able to turn back time.

So there's about the first 20 minutes of the movie.
And it does move through its 116 minutes quite well which is one of the best things about this movie and anything Jerry Bruckheimer does. If you're not familiar with Bruckheimer's stuff, check out that link. He's produced anything action oriented for Disney in like the past 10 years (Pirates of the Caribbean, National Treasure, etc). And most of time, as with National Treasure, the first one is sort of fun but kind of annoying and the second one is just pure annoying. But he really scored with Pirates. At least until the 3rd one. Prince of Persia is in the same vein as Pirates. It's not quite as charming and new as Jack Sparrow, but it holds its own fairly well.

All the free-running that occurs is pretty darn cool. And if it reminds you at all of the stuff you do in Assassin's Creed, it's no accident. It was made by the same creators as Persia. So the fighting is cool and entertaining, that's for sure. But what about the story? I can't really tell you more than I already did without giving away too much even though it's pretty obvious Ben Kingsley's Nizam is the bad guy. Anyways, I'll just say the ending has a twist I didn't really see coming, even though if I was thinking harder I probably could've figured it out. 

But that's what's so fun about these movies, you don't have to think that much. The scenery is vibrant and cool, there's crazy weapons and crazy bad-guys to wield them, and lots of fun acrobats. Even though prior to seeing this I called it The Prince of the Mummy of the Caribbean National Treasure, I must admit that it effectively creates its own story. The characters aren't the strongest or most menacing, funny people like Barbossa or Sparrow, but they get the job done. 

And that's all that matters here. I enjoyed myself without having to think too much. There's not much more you can ask from a summer pop-corn movie like this. I might even go as far to say that this is my favorite movie of the summer SO FAR. Iron Man 2 didn't cut it because of its predecessor which took all of the glory and the sequel only rehashed it all to a ridiculous extent. Robin Hood is something we've seen before from all of its characters and didn't catch my attention like I would've liked it to. Persia succeeded on multiple levels to be fun and just family friendly enough to give parents and their kids something to do on the weekends.

Now I'm just crossing my fingers for Assassin's Creed to be made next, and hopefully it'll at least be just as good or maybe better than Prince of Persia.