Prince of Persia

In 1995, I got a Mac computer. And when I say "I" that means my folks got one for our house to be used by four kids and one father. We got a disc of demo games with the computer. One of the demos was two levels of Prince of Persia. It was a fun game. You could use the arrows to get a guy to walk up to a wall and jump straight up in the air (pictured above). It was just fun enough to play two levels. I guess they made a new version of the game a couple years ago for Playstation, but I know nothing about it. Now they use sands of time. 


The movie title is based on one of the games. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. I understand not wanting to call your sequels "Part 2". But why on Earth would you have a colon hyphen for your first movie. People like to shorten titles, not lengthen them. Dreamworks advertised "How to Train Your Dragon" as "Dragons". If I said "did you watch Arrested last night?" you know that I was talking about Arrested Development. You'd also wonder why I was talking to someone about a show that was cancelled four years ago.


So, how is the movie? Well, its made by Disney, who has successfully marketed three Pirate movies that were each over 2 and a half hours long. They made Nicolas Cage run around looking for secret books that Presidents hide. Its along those lines. This time they have Jake Gyllenhaal pretend he is middle eastern decent (a plot device keeps us from complaining by having him be adopted). It has Gemma Atherton, who I forgot was a red head in the last James Bond movie. Alfred Molina shows up for comedic effect sans the funny parts. 


This one will be easily forgotten. But it had some parkor, which I guess is still popular. There are a lot of sets that look like sets. There are a lot of the close shots and quick cuts that make me feel like no one can frame an action shot anymore. No one can choreograph fight scenes.  Some day in ten years there will be people flipping by TBS asking "what is this again?" And the reply will be "the one where Donnie Darko looks like a video game fighting snakes".  


Did you enjoy it?
Eh. Sort of.

Would you see it in theaters again?
No

Would you buy it?
No

Would you rent it?
No

Would you watch it if you saw it was on TV?
No