The mere idea of turning a video game into a live-action film is ambitious enough, with cinematic masterpieces such as “Super Mario Bros.” (1993) setting the bar. How can you top Dennis Hopper shooting lasers at John Leguizamo while giant lizard men roam around? “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” may boast a larger budget and 17 years’ worth of new technology, but neither saves it from sinking in the quicksand.
The story begins in ancient Persia with Dastan, a feisty orphan whose display of courage in the form of chucking fruit at a ruthless guard and parkour skills catch the eye of the king of Persia, who impulsively decides to adopt him.
Fifteen years later, he’s now a prince ““ played by Jake Gyllenhaal ““ who hasn’t lost his parkour skills or his grungy hairstyle, now adorned with a random bead.
Dastan’s defining quality is following his heart ““ he’s honorable, but he lacks charisma. Basically, as hard as they tried, he’s no Aladdin.
The first 20 minutes of the film are so action-packed, as the Persian forces breach the walls of the holy city of Alamut, that they have the intensity of the final scenes of “Troy,” but they lack any foundation for what’s happening, giving no reason to care no matter how dramatic the music is.
The purpose for invading Alamut ““ to stop the city from supposedly building weapons for Persia’s enemies ““ is made clear only after the fact, setting a befuddled theme for the rest of the film. This convolution is primarily due to the fact that no one scene is long enough to fully establish anything.
They conquer the city with no weapons to be found ““ how political of you, Disney ““ but Dastan does come across an ancient dagger, which he later discovers has the power to turn back time and end civilization if placed in the wrong hands. In other words, this Aladdin wannabe found his equivalent of a magic lamp.
When he’s not scaling walls or hopping from rooftop to rooftop, Dastan’s facing allegations that he murdered his father, the king, and is unable to trust his two brothers or Uncle Nizam (Ben Kingsley). He flees from his home with Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton), who was taken as a spoil of the Persian’s battle against Alamut and who’s got nothing on Jasmine.
Arterton, a British Demi Lovato look-alike, spends the majority of her scenes alternating between loathing Dastan for breaching her city’s walls and gazing longingly at him, indicating perhaps she’d like for him to breach something else.
The two form a bond as Dastan pieces together who really killed his father and learns more about the dagger, such as its need for a special kind of sand, which so conveniently happens to be in a vial hanging from a necklace, nestled between Tamina’s boobs. This is as explicitly sexual as Disney gets in this PG-13 movie for those hoping to see a raunchier Gyllenhaal.
Dastan and Tamina encounter various side characters along their adventure, such as Alfred Molina’s Sheik Amar, the only intentional source of comedic relief ““ he loves ostriches and hates taxes.
Molina joins the ranks of A-list actors who inexplicably decided to lend their names and faces to this film. Kingsley played a disgruntled Iranian once already in “House of Sand and Fog” (2003), but this time, he gets to wear eyeliner. And Gyllenhaal himself is poorly cast in a role that may have only been given to him because Andy Samberg from “Saturday Night Live” said he looks like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back in 2007.
Even with all the non-stop action and fight scenes, the actors don’t seem to be enjoying themselves in a film that should be fun at the very least. Director Mike Newell even manages to make Gyllenhaal’s parkour scenes lackluster by switching to slow motion at every leap, trying to make them much more significant than they need to be.
Translating a game to the big screen means taking away the sense of control from the hands of the viewers while keeping them invested in the story, a feat that proved too difficult for “Prince of Persia.”
Gyllenhaal’s solid abs and muddled British accent do not an entertaining action movie make. So stick to the game, or “Aladdin,” because you won’t be able to turn back “the sands of time” and get your two hours back.