Let’s be honest, video games are rubbish now, aren’t they? Overly glossed up, cookie-cutter “one man against an army” style plots and all so easy you can finish them in a weekend. At the risk of betraying the duddering old fossil that lives at the very core of my being, it wasn’t like this in my day.
No, back then games were rock hard, atrocious looking monstrosities, where you could be playing anything from a horde of suicidal green haired man-rodents to a knight fighting on the back of an ostrich. In a volcano. And they were tough too. With about 60% of the games I owned on my Nintendo Entertainment System (1988-91), I never saw the end credits roll.
One of the games that really stood out as an example of the great tradition of mercilessly difficult titles programmed by guys in their bedrooms was Prince of Persia. A bloke in what appears to be white pyjamas gets locked in a trap laden dungeon and has to escape, rescue the princess and kill the bad-guy. That’s it, simple, uncomplicated, perfect.
Inevitably, the Prince of Persia franchise got a big budget remake on the PS2, where thanks to its intuitive platform jumping action and genuinely original time-travel mechanic, it became one of the most popular titles of the last decade, so it was only a matter of time before someone took a stab at bringing the cutlass wielding, rooftop jumping hijinx to the big screen.
The story has it’s foundations in the plot of the first PS2 game. Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), framed for a murder he didn’t commit, comes in to possession of a dagger with the power to send its user a short way back in time. All kinds of nefarious baddies are after it, of course, which means Dastan is faced with the triple task of clearing his name, protecting the dagger and contending with the dagger’s sacred guardian, sassy Princess Tamina (Gemma Arteton).
If nothing else, director Mike Newell (the man behind The Goblet of Fire, the best Potter film by some distance) makes a good case for location filming vs. green screen. Make no mistake, this is as effects heavy a movie as you’ll see this year, but shooting much of the piece in Morocco with good old-fashioned stunt performers produces a pleasantly organic feel to the unfolding events. The action scenes themselves are, for the most part great, exciting and death defying enough to keep the audience on their toes without ever resorting too much to the lure of CGI, which can so often alienate the viewer from the action. Only the films climax betrays this philosophy and, predictably, its a bit of a mess.
Chiefly though, Newell seems keen to keep the film as old school as possible. The sweeping landscapes and huge temples hark back to the golden era of sandy epics like Spartacus and Sinbad. It seems the idea that this title has anything to do with a video game franchise is deliberately placed on the back burner, no bad thing when you consider the titles that embraced the concept entirely (I’m looking at you Street Fighter).
Unfortunately, the script isn’t really able to hold up the expectation created by the lavish spectacle. Some hit and miss one-liners along with clunky back-and-forths make it seem like the writers couldn’t decide whether they were scripting a smart-talking action movie or a full blown Lord of the Rings fantasy epic and settled on a bastard child of the two. A shame, as a story like this is begging for some smooth dialogue to counteract the frenetic pace.
Another thing that Hollywood must learn, and learn quickl,y is that voiceover and/or on screen text based narration often equals lazy storytelling. You use either and you are basically saying to your audience “Thank you for your money, but regrettably, I consider you far too stupid to understand the themes presented here. I shall now proceed to spell them out for you, thicko”. It’s patronising and highly unnecessary.
Whilst theres a strong feeling of cliché about the characters, they are mostly redeemed by good performances. Gyllenhaal is used to playing the leading man, but this is his first out and out action role, and he pulls it off with aplomb, every inch the dashing hero. His banter with Gemma Arteton is convincing enough to steer the relationship away from the tedious hero/heroine set-up and into a genuinely authentic spark-filled relationship. Arteton for her part sinks her teeth into this role with far more gusto here than in her slack-jawed performance in Clash of the Titans. The real black spot on the record however is Alfred Molinas bizarre and cringe-worthy turn as a cockney bandit/merchant/ostrich racing tycoon, a cheap comic-relief role which adds nothing to the plot and which Molina sleepwalks through more than an escapee of a narcoleptic ward.
Prince of Persia, like many Jerry Bruckheimer productions, is a big, silly film with few aspirations of being anything else. Action-wise, it does the job and does it well, especially when it comes to the smaller scale, rough and tumble pursuits and sword fighting. Gyllenhaal is a charismatic lead (with a none-to-shabby British accent I might add), and the majority of the cast, especially the ever reliable Sir Ben Kingsley, provide excellent back-up. Unfortunately, its weighed down by too many clichés and a mediocre script to be truly standout.
Overall Verdict: Far from exceptional, but worth checking out for some splendid action sequences and slick direction. By some distance the most accomplished game-to-movie transition so far, even if that isnt saying much.
Reviewer: Alex Hall