Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Thank goodness for ostrich racing. The absurdist sport provides the only unique entertainment in the otherwise recycled action flick Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. The racing sequence stands out like a sore thumb in the movie, because it's silly in a good way (the movie is mostly silly in a bad way) and it feels oddly original. Outside of the ostriches, this is a pretty bland adventure, offering up thrills that more closely resemble spills and special effects that are, well, far from special. What more could I ask for in a movie based on a video game?

The whole genre of movies adapted from video games is routinely attacked for being incredibly poor, so making the complaint that this is yet another misguided attempt to translate arcade-style joy to the big screen means having to sound like a broken record. Beating up on video game movies is too easy, to the point of being almost unfair. Should we steal their lunch money, too? If it's Street Fighter or Doom or Prince of Persia, the game proves to be fun and the movie merely stinks.

Despite carrying a much larger budget than its predecessors and having some big names in the cast, this latest video game flick cannot escape its fate. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a meandering movie with a stale narrative and a sinkhole of imagination. In other words, it's like every other video game movie ever made. The script is credited to Boaz Yakin, Doug Miro, and Carlo Bernard (video game writer Jordan Mechner receives a "screen story" credit, too), who have extracted a plot from a specific entry in the video game franchise that involves a street orphan named Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) being taken in by the king of ancient Persia and growing up a Prince.

Dastan's life is tossed upside down when he is accused of murdering his adoptive father following the successful raid of a neighbouring palace. With no opportunity to clear his name, Dastan flees with would-be prisoner Princess Tamina (she of the recently plundered palace) and his adventure in the desert begins. Along the way, he discovers the true power of a mysterious dagger that uses magical sand to turn back time. The dagger is a basic MacGuffin around which the characters can argue and stir up conflict.

The concept of reversing chronology by using a weapon that can quite literally tear a hole in the fabric of time is a lot of fun, but it's never particularly interesting in the context of the movie. Characters can die one moment and be resurrected the next, which saps the movie of its dramatic potential. The dagger is better served in the world of video games, where the remedy for death is simply a reset button away. This movie asks that we feel something when a character bites the dust, even though we know full well that the dagger is just waiting to rewind the last minute of footage.

There is a somewhat humorous and oddly obvious anti-establishment tone sitting loudly on the surface of the script, so the screenwriters deserve some credit for at least attempting to layer the story with subtext. There's very little sub to the text, since the anti-Bush administration sentiment is thinly veiled, if veiled at all. The army of which Dastan was a member, until the murder accusation sent him packing, is marching around to various palaces with claims of trying to uncover hidden Weapons of Mass Destruction. Seriously. And when the WMDs aren't being mentioned, another character is likely complaining about taxes. Hmm... there's a message in here somewhere.

This attitude never amounts to much in the end, since the script simply acknowledges the blatant references and leaves it at that. But hey, at least they're trying. That's more than can be said for director Mike Newell, who previously tested fantasy waters by helming the fourth instalment of the Harry Potter franchise. Apparently, that didn't teach him much about keeping a coherent narrative thread running through the action and it certainly didn't inspire him to explore original and intriguing ways of approaching massive set pieces.

Newell's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was a watchable entry, but based on that movie and now his Prince of Persia flick, I don't think that he brings much to the cinematic fantasy genre. The first major action sequence in this movie is relatively entertaining and some lightly flashy camera work evokes a sense of video game omniscience that is momentarily intriguing. But after that, Newell sinks into a state of paint-by-numbers drudgery. He employs endless amounts of slow-motion jumping and flipping to manufacture excitement and the result is pretty lifeless.

Also absent from Newell's abilities as director of this movie is the crucial element of actually directing the actors. It's certainly not all his fault, but he does deserve some of the blame along with the performers. Jake Gyllenhaal is woefully miscast. He flashes his charming smile and he clearly lived in a gym leading up to this movie, since his muscles ripple in every frame, but he appears eerily uncomfortable in the role. It's as though he's inhabiting someone else's body and the new skin doesn't quite fit him. He puts on a brave face, but the action hero archetype looks awkwardly wooden on him. There's nothing particularly convincing about his performance (okay, the muscles look real) and he never rises above the trashy simplicity of Newell's direction.

The rest of the cast doesn't fare any better, except that Alfred Molina, who appears as a wily ostrich race promoter, seems to be having fun kicking around in the desert and spouting bad dialogue. Sir Ben Kingsley stars as Dastan's nasty uncle Nizam and to say that he phones in the performance would be to suggest that he actually did some work by picking up the metaphorical phone. He did clearly show up on the set and get his eyeliner put on, so I guess that counts for something, but Kingsley is taking this whole good-actor-gone-bad thing too far. If he keeps this up, maybe he'll be stripped of his knighthood one day.

Ten years ago, Kingsley briefly revitalized his career with a scene-stealing turn as foul-mouthed gangster Don Logan in the dark British comedy Sexy Beast. Since then, Kingsley has played a handful of sneering roles with embarrassingly dreadful results in movies like Bloodrayne and War, Inc. Now he's back at it again and he isn't trying any harder. It's frustrating to watch someone of Kingsley's pedigree slum it in a role like this, but I guess expecting anything more than flat, unchallenged acting in a video game movie is far too optimistic.

Gemma Arterton plays love interest/damsel in distress/exposition provider Tamina, who knows the history of the time-sifting dagger quite intimately. This is Arterton's second sword-and-sandals epic in as many months (she also starred in the remake of Clash of the Titans), so she's probably feeling pretty at home with all the sand and silky costumes. But that comfort level with her surroundings doesn't translate to her acting. It is evident that the camera absolutely adores her, capturing every pouty look with such angelic precision that she might as well be sporting a halo above her head. But beyond the golden imagery she provides, her performance is a stilted mess.

The technical aspects of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, so often the lone highlight of a movie like this, are not very impressive at all. Some of the digital environments are rendered with believable clarity, but the majority of CGI sequences are a pitiful collection of pixels. A generic score by Harry Gregson-Williams doesn't help matters, abandoning the sloppy visuals by providing dollar-store tunes.

It all adds up to a lacklustre and underwhelming experience. It's not surprising that the acting is awful and that the script is silly, but Newell and co. at least owe us some well-paced fun. A few moments achieve that, but they are fleetingly few. It is clear that I have many complaints about this movie and there is a wide range of disappointments in its cinematic arsenal, but in the end, my problem with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is simple: too much hokey stupidity, not enough ostrich racing.