The Prints of Persia

I played the original game, and the follow up game, way back when. Never played the Sands of Time series, have some of the basics, so was as ready as I was going to be to see the movie version.

The plot is: everybody dies. Certainly, there is a lot of death as the nominal Prince is portrayed as a the bad guy, although he isn't thrown in a dungeon, and the princess isn't waiting in the bedroom with a sand timer and a mouse. There are a fair few action sequences, some minimal attempt at characterisation development, and a LOT of rooftop jumping. Hours of it, it seems. And I think I saw a panning shot that looked to be straight from the game as well. Oh and sand. And time.

Jake Gyllenhaal is decent enough as the prince, and Ben "I'm not evil. Seriously. I'm not. Please believe this lie for a while at least" Kingsley unsurprisingly upstages everyone else around him. Gemma Arterton is presented as the Sexy Woman, rather than being the Sexy Woman, so is alright. And aside from Richard Coyle channeling Sean Bean, and Alfred Molina also scene stealing, the rest of the cast is also there.

It does feel a little long, with one or two action sequences too many, is otherwise a watchable movie that doesn't reach brilliant heights of wonderfulness, but also doesn't suck terribly.

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