Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (波斯王子：時之刃)

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Dastan, once orphaned as a boy and adopted by the benevolent King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup). Dastan is raised alongside his two prince sons, good-hearted heir to the throne Garsiv (Toby Kebbell), and the cantankerous Tus (Richard Coyle). But wearing a derisive expression with plenty of eyeliner is Ben Kingsley, who plays the king's silver-tongued brother, Nizam. He leads the brothers to a location rumored to contain a secret stash of weapons of mass destruction, all the while looking reminiscent of Jafar from Aladdin. These WMD are actually swords and the fabled dagger maguffin that unleashes sands capable of reversing time. Surprise surprise, this could potentially destroy the earth!

However much of the film rests on the appeal of Gyllenhaal who must have spent more time in the gym than perfecting his lines for his role as an acrobatic warrior with a British accent. Why British you ask? Well Mike Newell seems to have pulled together a cast of British actors and with much of the production being completed at Pinewood Studios in the UK, it was probably easiest that everyone have the same accent. Gyllenhaal's accent is rather good, until the acrobatics kick in, then the American voice returns.

The rest of the film lies in the very cable hands of Princess Tamina, played by Gemma Arterton, who knows more about a secret dagger than she lets on to Dastan. The dagger's true power is that it can send the holder back in time by a few seconds, kicking up a dust storm in the process, and Tamina wants it back. Arterton exudes energy onset bringing intelligence to the silly scenes of dusty acrobatics.

It seems that whenever the two lead actors meet, Director Mike Newell cooks up a few dust storms to add to the excitement of the scene, but this all an illusion as there's little chemistry actually in the air. A PG13 rating seems a little high for a film marketed at ten year-olds.

The real skill lies in Jerry Bruckheimer's editors, who manage to keep the plot thick with suspense and fast enough to somewhat overlook the obviously ludicrous script. A game lover's imagining of ancient Persia awaits, with swords, horses, winds and sands set on a backdrop of magnificent looking cities.

That's part-in-parcel with the game, but the appeal to anyone unfamiliar with it might linger only up to the star casting, namely Sir Ben Kingsley, whose menace is only challenged by Alfred Molina's welcoming comical role as Sheik Amar, an ostrich racing businessman. Aside from the stylish special effects, there's really nothing else momentous about Prince of Persia, which slowly drifts from the mind as the sands of time wear away at the plot.

Overall an extremely far-fetched tale kept afloat only by its visual stimulus; high-adrenaline acrobatics and expert special effects.

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