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Full disclaimer: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures flew me out and put me up in a hotel to see an early screening of this motion picture.
I'm not a movie critic, and I wouldn't do their craft injustice by attempting to do a full, proper review of Walt Disney Pictures' upcoming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Not that it would be of any use to anyone right now anyway -- the film doesn't even come out until May 28. But after a flurry of Tweets where I talked about the bizarre circumstances surrounding my 1.5-minute interview with Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the number-one thing my Twitter followers wanted to know was: How was the movie? Perhaps followed closely by: How many explosions were there?
Here is my quick and simple take from a gamer's point of view. And "quick and simple take" means I'm going to interview myself....
Does the movie do the game license justice?
You know, I have to say it does. I'm not the world's biggest Prince of Persia fan, so what I was looking for are the expected trademarks: building-bounding parkour and a romantic (no, not lovey-dovey) adventure in the vein of classic Sinbad (no, not the comedian). And in these departments, the film delivers.
Some of the acrobatics seem a bit drawn out, almost as though Director Mike Newell is trying too hard to remind us, "Hey, look...we're being faithful to the video games, OK?" If they would've trimmed down those action sequences in half, it all would've felt a lot less forced. But since the choreography wasn't too over the top, I didn't mind that much -- no eye-rolling here.
The magical dagger's time-rewinding powers had some impressive special effects that didn't look overly CGed, even though it was all CG. And thankfully, the movie doesn't use the Sands of Time as much as we do in the games -- every few minutes, that is. So that aspect is well-paced.
How's the acting? How are the characters?
The acting's just fine, though the characterizations could use more subtlety. Can they make it any more obvious who the good and bad guys are? And the secondary characters are all too standard: the mysterious black guy who's as deadly as he is silent, the beautiful but overly spunky princess, the roly-poly supporting role who's there for the laughs....
I'm probably being too picky here, though -- this is a fairly mainstream film by Disney, after all.
How many explosions were there?
Not a ton, sorry to say. It wasn't the right era for that.
So, is the movie any good?
It's a summer film based on a video game series, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. So yes, it's exactly what just about everyone in the world is expecting it to be: big budget, big action, not the deepest of plots and dialog, and tons of blockbuster-movie clichés.
It doesn't make any advancements in fight choreography, but it doesn't do wrong there, either. The parkour moments were fun to watch, especially when Jake Gyllenhaal's Prince would do things straight out of the games, like flag-pole-to-flag-pole flips, wall runs, and the like. They were such direct nods to the franchise, that I wanted to tell the guy next to me, "That's from the video game, you know." (And by the way, some parts even made me think "Assassin's Creed"....)
The editing and flow could've used some work. At times, the storyline was moving along faster than what's reasonable, almost as though the editors took out huge chunks of film that would've connected the dots a bit more realistically. And the clichés...oh the clichés. I won't spoil anything, but I'd be very disappointed in you if you didn't see what's coming all along. But again, it's nothing really unexpected, so it didn't exactly ruin the experience for me.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is all "popcorn flick," but I'm sure you suspected that long before I said anything. It won't be up for any "Best Picture" nominations, but I had a very good time watching it nonetheless.
