Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

When I bought Prince of Persia: Sands of Time for the Gamecube I was very happy. I heard people talk about it and seemed to have mostly good praise. I also loved the game. Frustrating at times, but fun. That and rewinding time to save your ass when you accidentally made a wrong move(which there are plenty of opprotunities) is amazingly helpful. But there was one thing the game lacked... it was the story.

So when I heard they were making a movie out of this game I was a bit... well worried. The story of Sands of Time is simple. The King of Persia leads an invasion of a well guarded city. The Prince(who is given no name and is just called the Prince) decides during this invasion that he is going to show his father his real worth(or something along the lines) During the invasion he finds the Dagger of Time. The Dagger of Time along with the Hourglass of Time is taken back to the King of Persia where the Sands of Time is unleashed and turns every living creature into a skeleton/zombie hybrid thing. That is except for 3 people. The Prince, The Princess of the invaded town(I forget her name) and the main villian of the story.

From there. You go through the Great Palace fighting your way and using the Dagger of Time to collect Sands of Time and hopefully reverse what has happened. The game focuses less on combat and more on the obstacles in your way. Which is a good thing because the Prince is one hell of an acrobat.

That is basicly the entire story. Which is fine for a game but for a movie... this is why I was not exactly looking forward to it. Well I was but you know how it is... or perhaps you don't.

In the movie the Prince, named Dastan(which is funny because Destiny is brought up... and to pronounce the Prince's name is to leave off the y at the end. Coincidence? I think... well nvm) is an orphaned boy who the King takes as his own.(I think this is consistant with the actual game's story but not sure) and again helps win the battle at the city one of his Brothers decides to invade on the premise that its secretly giving weapons to Persia's enemies. Prince obtains dagger and from there its pretty much COMPLETELY different from the game.

Diverging from the Original is always one way to piss me off about adaptions. Now of course there are always examples to prove this is sometimes a good idea and in Sands of Time's case. Definitely. Most of the game is going through obstacles and enemies and figuring out the puzzle. Which would leave for about 100 minutes(not sure exact run time) of this. Would get boring fast. Now watching Free Runners and Parkor(is that spelled right) is always fun to watch but not so much of it at once.

Also the changes in the story is also good because when the Prince isn't talking to the Princess he tends to talk to himself... alot. Which isn't so bad because its quite amusing. But not so good for a movie.

Lets move on as I can tell this is going to be long enough as it is.

Jake Gyllenhaal as Prince Dastan.
You know when I first learned he was going to play the Prince I was a bit worried. I loved him in October Sky. When I think about him thats usually the role I remember most. So my first mental image of him playing the Prince was... well sorta a mix of his character in October Sky and well the Prince. Though when I first saw images of him as the Prince. I was sold. He looked very similar to the Prince. It was as if he was born to play the role. I kid you not. Jake also managed to pull off the Prince's cocky attitude and such and was... well I thought it was good anyways. Of course it has been a year or 2 since I played the game... so who knows? I thought he did a good job overall.

Princess Whats Her Face(I still can't remember her name and don't feel like looking it up. So she is Princess Whats Her Face. Got it? Good) In the game the Princess(actaully I am sticking with just The Princess. She is the only one in the entire game/movie anyways) has a very similar personality to that of the Prince. They go well together so it works. In the movie they were similar. However not ONCE in the entire movie did she pick up a bow. Which in the game was her primary weapon. That is when ever she was around for a fight. But she wasn't downgraded to a helpless female either. She used other weapons too. So yay for her.

The Villian.
Similar to the one in the game... sorta. I mean you don't get much info on him in the game at all.

Hrmm.

Now in the Game you don't learn much about the Sands of Time or their origins... well maybe you do. But like I said 98% of the movie was either solving puzzles/getting past obstacles and traps/fighting. In the movie the go deeper into the origins, the role the Princess plays, expanded on the Prince's origins, and expanded on the world.

Now the Sands of Time didn't turn everyone into a skeleton/zombie hybrid. The main focus of the movie was trying to keep the Dagger of Time out of the reach of the Villian. They dodge assassins, an angry buisness man who runs an Ostrage Race, dodge guards and plenty of fighting.

The one thing that bugged me was how often the dagger exchanged hands. First the Prince would have it, then the Princess would steal it, then the Prince would steal it back, then a different group of people steals it, then he gets it back, the Villian steals it and... it's never in the hands of the good guys for more then like 5 minutes screen time. It sorta became comedic which sorta was a turn off even if intended.

The action was good, though in a few scenes it was hard to tell what the hell was going on at all.

That and the Prince was dual wielding swords... which is always a favorite of mine. So thats always a plus for me. Though in the game he uses his Sword and the Dagger. Then again he only uses his 2 swords in like one scene... which makes me sad. Well maybe 2.

The visuals were... well I dunno they looked sorta bad in some places but overall it was visually pleasing. But then again I don't mind if a movie doesn't have amazingly awesome CGI and the such. So... yeah.

The acting. Ok I am not a good judge of acting so don't ask me.


Over all?

I actually loved this movie. Was it drastically different then the game? Well yeah. But you play the game and tell me how you would try and pull off it in a movie adaption?

Also I hear the creator of the Prince of Persia series/Sands of Time(I dunno exactly) was involved in the process of the movie. Hopefully that means he had some say in the script and such.

What this basicly means these changes are the Word of God so to speak. Give or take. Maybe. I honestly don't know how involved he was. I only heard rumors and such. Its funny though. You butcher someones elses work in an adaptation you should be flogged. Like seriously. I know you can't squeeze everything in... but yeah.

But when the creator and such are involved in the movie I am far far more lenient. I hear thats what happened with the Grudge. Well it was one of the Japanese Horror movies that Hollywood remade. But with this one(not sure if it was the Grudge or not) the actual director redirected his the remake so... thats not so bad.

But yeah.

Oh! I almost forgot. I loved the acrobatic scenes and stuff(is acrobatic the word I am looking for? Not sure.) Seeing Dastan move on roof tops and such was such an awesome thing. Because well that was definitely in the game.

Anyways I enjoyed it. I really did. So.

Not sure how everyone else precieved the film and whether or not its one of those hated films with horrible standing on Rotten Tomatoes. But as for this guy... I loved it.

I did not read that, or see the movie. But my oven muffin Jake is so sexy I don't think it could be too bad.

I was actually surprised that I liked the movie. I thought it was going to be bad but it was pretty decent. Good action, not a bad CGI, Dastan and Princess Whats Her Face looked pretty good together , It's worth a watch

Oh! I almost forgot. I loved the acrobatic scenes and stuff(is acrobatic the word I am looking for? Not sure.)

I think it's called parkour..or something. If you liked it here you might like this as well