JUN
05
Prince of Persia
0
A film review of the prince of that place. You know, the country next to the arabian gulf.
Prince of Persia is a video game which has no plot or story beyond jumping over dangerous gaps and stabbing Arabs, unfortunately the film deviates from this stellar premise by trying to add characters, motives and strange homages to other video games.
The guy from Donnie Darko got stuck in a washing machine set to Sexy for the past few years and plays the titular Prince (of Persia), showing off his curves slightly more than the Princess of Not-Persia, often outshining her (Gemma Arterton) as the person on screen I would most like to copulate with. Jake Gyllenhaal is actually pretty good as Prince Dastan, though his accent regularly reminded me of a South African getting strangled by an angry football hooligan. He jumps over dangerous gaps and stabs Arabs with great efficacy, it’s just a shame they shoe-horned in so many other things less interesting for him to do (such as open his mouth).
The actual premise is too bizarre for me to type out, but even though it involves angry time manipulating sand and ostrich racing it isn’t actually that bad in execution. The pacing may be akin to a marathon with the Ministry of Funny Walks but despite its hiccups along the way it is comfortable and easy to digest.
Hitting the jump button at just the right moment for the most part, you are spoon-fed magical sand stories, snake befriending weirdo assassins and competent women throughout. Luckily there is no real explanation for this, it is just thrown at you and you’re expected to catch it in your own way; you get the feeling that everything is just slightly tongue-in-cheek, and they’re daring you to try and question the events unfolding.
Villains and friends of our dashing hero are fluid throughout, with the cast actually behaving rather admirably considering the writing and plot, Ben Kingsley plays Ben Kingsley to great effect and Alfred Molina plays a goofy side-tracked sub-character as well as ever.
Making a triumphant return is also the classic under-arm stab, the off-screen slit throat and the off-screen audible murder. Being rated a PG-13/12a actually helps the film, I am rather sick to the stomach of ultra slow-mo mega gore that all films with any violence at all are slobbering over recently (300, clash of the titans). Bringing in a Sinbad vibe and forcing the film to rely on decent choreography and funny “I am now Dead (or wounded)” noises instead of showing meaty guys admiring each other’s innards. Whilst this won’t make it a favourite with the mindless, icing bromosapiens that you would imagine this film is aimed at it does leave the film as a family friendly rumpus that even Dad won’t require his hip flask to stomach.
Unlike a few other Hollywood films recently the special effects are actually rather admirable, showing what can be done with proper scope (no falling Eiffel towers, evil sand-men (there is evil sand though!) and a delightful lack of blue bumpkins). The snakes look surprisingly like snakes (I know my snakes) and the sand looks surprisingly like sand. The time-reversal cgi is palatable and accomplishes its purpose without grandeur, using nifty but not-so-clever effects to show everyone moving backwards hastily. They do however decide there haven’t been enough cgi cities being destroyed recently and show the same one getting unnecessarily mullered by evil sand. Twice.
Filming in Morocco instead of a green-screen definitely made the film better, seeing Dastan hop around a semi-real city seems to anchor the film to reality, holding it from flying off into the magical rainbow land where its plot belongs. It may not be Persia or have any Persians in it but it all looks like it could be Persia and nobody knows what Persians look like anyway so they’re safe there.
However, like in a marathon the final stretch is really what brings the pain; coming in at around 2 hours it begins to drag at the end. Whilst not on Lord of the Rings levels, the endings seem to just keep on coming.
In the end everyone’s motives are understandable; the plot is rather straightforward despite its weirdness and although it’s predictable and flat in places everything is tied up nicely by its bloated end. Whilst it isn’t going to be taking home any prestigious film awards the producers can be happy they produced one of the better game-to-film adaption’s which will hopefully lead the way for more in the future.
Good enough for a sequel? Probably. If only because multi-media releases are the hot thing these days. I expect another film and game co-release within the next 5 years. The charm of the film is undeniable, and even if I hadn’t played any of the games I would still have enjoyed it, I hate the “turn your brain off” adage bandied around too often but it definitely suits Prince of Persia.
I’ll arbitrarily give it 6/10, because something tells me that is a safe score.
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