Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is the newest movie by Mike Newell, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina.
Plot:
Persia is a huge and powerful kingdom, led by the King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup) and his brother Nizam (Ben Kingsley). One day, they find a little street boy who stands out by being courageous and, impressed, Sharaman adopts him. The boy, Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), grows up with the princes and as their equal. And then he goes to war with his brothers, against the Holy City of Alamut, under the supervision of Nizam. But there’s something mysterious about the city and the Princess of Alamut, Tamina (Gemma Arterton), is closely connected to the mystery. Soon, Dastan finds his fate ever more entangled with Tamina’s.
Prince of Persia is pretty awesome. It’s predictable, but in a very comforting way, it is full of one-liners, it is definitely one of the better-acted movies of its kind and it’s damn entertaining. In short, it’s everything you need from a movie like it.
Seeing the promotional material for Prince of Persia, I was convinced that Jake Gyllenhaal was too ripped for his own good. I mean, there is such a thing as too many muscles. But after seeing the film and seeing him in his (very, very nice) costumes, I have to revise my opinion. He’s just the right amount of muscled.
Generally speaking, he makes for a pretty good Dastan. And Alfred Molina is awesome. He really pulls off what Ben Kingsley is trying to do – one very good high-brow, one very good low-brow movie. Ben Kingsley on the other hand… I think it’s the casting. As deadra so succinctly put it: “When Ben Kingsley is not wearing glasses in a movie, he is evil!” When something becomes that dependable, it does many things but it does not make me say, “that is awesome.” Gemma Arterton, on the other hand, even though she mostly plays the princess/eye-candy, keeps surprising me in her roles and every time I see her, I like her more.
The story itself is, as I said before, pretty predictable but it pushes all the right buttons. Especially the fun buttons. [So many great one-liners! Alfred Molina!] And the action buttons. [Gotta love parcours.]
But where it fails a little bit… so, they casted like two black people in the whole film (and practically no Middle Easterners of any kind which is in itself headdesk-worthy). And _both_ black guys (Steve Toussaint and Reece Ritchie, who might not even be actually black) get to nobly sacrifice themselves for the white guy. O_o
Another thing that bothered me were the Hassansins. First of all, is hassassins copyrighted? Is that a typo? What the hell is that second n doing there? Second, why did they all need to be a little disfigured or at least weird-looking? I felt like that crossed a line and I had problems suspending my disbelieft there.
Summarising: Very good entertainment and a movie I’ll definitely re-watch, when I don’t feel like watching Pirates of the Caribbean but want something of the same caliber.
kalafudra's Stuff 
“In short, it’s everything you need from a movie like it.”
This, exactly. Although one thing I don’t get – why the British accents? Is it to make them as “Hey Toto we’re not in Kansas anymore” non-American as possible but not make them foreign because Hollywood hates foreigners except as bad guys or comic relief?
And yes, Ben Kingsley was so OBVIOUSLY going to be evil from the start. First big scene he’s in my friend Sarah leant over and whispered “Check out Ben Kingsley’s over-the-top eyeliner – he’s SO going to be the bad guy!”
Yeah, I was wondering about the British accents as well, especially because Jake Gyllenhaal? Does not have the same ease with accents as Maggie Gyllenhaal. He didn’t do a bad job, but it always seemed like there was something inside him thinking about how to pronounce his next word.
But I guess it was because most of the cast was British and they decided to go for at least unified accent-weirdness. I for one am thankful that they didn’t all talk with a Persian/Farsi accent. Because things like that screw with my brain.
It wasn’t just British…it was probably the most perfect RP I’ve ever heard. I just chalked it up to the Star Trek effect…some kind of universal translator that made everyone sound like they were on BBC Radio 4.
But I agree with kalafudra…they all talked like that, so it wasn’t that weird, once you got used to it…I don’t want to think about how much worse it would have been if only certain people (ie baddies, as per usual) would have had non-American accents.
Or it could have resulted in a Captain Corelli’s Mandolin-like catastrophe of everybody talks English with an accent because that’s how you show that they’re actually [insert other nationality here].
In any case, I much prefer it like this.