Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)

Directed by Mike Newell. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Alfred Molina, Ben Kingsley, Richard Coyle, Toby Kebbell, Steve Toussaint, Gísli Örn Garðarsson, Ronald Pickup, Reece Ritchie. [PG-13]

After he and his brothers lead the charge to sack a Persian city, urchin-tuned-prince Dastan (Gyllenhaal) is framed for the murder of his adopted-father king, and flees with a beautiful but hostile princess (Arterton) and a magical dagger that can reverse the flow of time. Big-budget adaptation of the Ubisoft video game franchise has lots of eye-candy visuals and globe-trotting vistas (the hero evidently only needs about a day’s journey to get from a sun-scorched desert to a snowy mountain locale), and no shortage of vigorous athleticism and chases, but director Newell doesn’t demonstrate much skill as an action director. Anachronisms run rampant in the dialogue, too many of the characters exhibit contemporary behavior (especially Molina in the colorful role of an unscrupulous merchant sheik who hates taxes), and casting is highly suspect, but these are relatively forgivable sins if the production is engaging and exciting. What sinks this one into the sands of mediocrity is that the action sequences are too jumpy and visually chaotic, with no firm sense of space or interaction as Dastan pulls off the acrobatic feats that made the games so fun to play (no good puzzles for him to figure out either). The time-reversal gimmick also goes underused, which might have injected a little creativity into the standard Arabian atmosphere/trappings of the Islamic Golden Age. Comes up short in the rooting interest and romance departments considering that Molina has more chemistry with an ostrich than the leads have with each other, but then again, it is a handsome-looking bird. Jerry Bruckheimer produced, which is a better tip-off of what to expect than any plot synopsis in the world.

48/100