Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is an epic tale with gorgeous locations and par cour that is innovative and thrilling but the movie also contains some inherent flaws - not the lease of which is that none of the stars cast looks Persian. OK, maybe Ben Kinglsey since we already bought him as Ghandi. He might squeak by but not Alfred Molina as Sheik Amar the ex slave with a weird penchant for ostriches and certainly not Jake Gyllenhaal. And since when do all people from Persia all speak with an upper crust British accent? Gyllenhaal plays Dastan a former free running street urchin elevated to royal status by kindly King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup) who generously rules his vast kingdom with the help of his brother Nizam (Kingsley) and two natural sons Tus (Richard Coyle) and Garsiv (Toby Kebbell). When the city of Alamut is accused of going rogue by providing weapons to the enemies of Persia the king sends his three sons to investigate. After Alamut is sacked and the city’s beautiful princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) is taken prisoner she is betrothed to Datsan for political reasons. However when King Sharaman gets poisoned Dastan gets blamed and he has to flee with his reluctant fiancée who he finds useful but who is also constantly schemes against him. He finds out that she holds the key to the sands of time, the real reason for the Sharaman’s assassination and Dastan realizes that it’s up to him to make things right even with the might of the whole Persian army breathing down upon him and his plotting bride to be. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is based on a video game with extraordinary longevity having been developed as a side scroller game for MS DOS yet recently re-released on Game Cube. The movie might not have those kinds of legs.