I’m not sure what is more unlikely: Jake Gyllenhaal as an action hero or with a British accent. Turns out he’s good at both. In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, based on the popular video game, the actor perhaps best known for his portrayal of a homosexual cowboy in Brokeback Mountain, has transformed into a muscled Persian prince with an English accent. Given that we’re dealing with a work of fiction inspired by a computer game, it’s obvious the film is not intent on historical accuracy, but quite why, in a film set in 6th century Persia, Gyllenhaal is required to adopt a working class English accent is unclear. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that he is the lone American star in a film populated with British actors.
The film also has a British director in Mike Newell, whose credits include Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. But it’s perhaps the producer’s name that provides the best indication of the kind of film to expect. Jerry Bruckheimer is known for creating larger than life action spectacles, with an exhaustive resume that includes Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down and the Pirates of the Caribbean films. He brings that same sense of scale and brashness to Prince of Persia, which is entertaining enough without ever being fully engrossing.
Gyllenhaal has an understated quality that always makes him endearing. Here he plays Dastan who, as a young boy, is plucked from poverty and adopted by King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup), the ruler of what was then one of the greatest empires the world had ever known. Dastan is brought up as a prince alongside the King’s two other sons Tus (Richard Coyle) and Garsiv (Toby Kebbell), and the King’s brother Nizam (Ben Kingsley). When the King’s armies lead an attack on Alamut, a peaceful holy city suspected of housing weapons meant for enemies of the King (a veiled allusion to WMD and the invasion of Iraq anyone?), it is Dastan who leads the attack. What Dastan finds instead is a glass-handled dagger that contains the legendary Sands of Time, with the aid of which it is possible to turn back time.
When the King is assassinated, Dastan is accused of his murder and is forced to flee. He is joined by Tamina (Gemma Arterton), an Alamut Princess whose family had been guardians of the dagger for centuries. Dastan is intent on clearing his name and finding his father’s real murderer while Tamina wants to return the dagger to its rightful place and to liberate Alamut. And so begins the adventure.
The desert setting provides the film with an original element, but the action scenes and the omnipresent effects offer nothing new. Visually at times it resembles a giant video game. Its inclusion of parkour segments, though entertaining and in keeping with the game, seem decidedly at odds with the desert setting of 6th century Persia. The sequences would have also been more impressive had they not relied so obviously on CGI. The obligatory romance between Dastan and Tamina always feels clunky and the distinct lack of chemistry between Gyllenhaal and Arterton doesn’t help. The film’s highlights come not via the action but courtesy of Alfred Molina whose hysterical performance as a shady sheik steals the movie.
Possessing a weapon that can turn back time would be a handy item to have, although by the end of Prince of Persia, I wouldn’t be too inclined to rewind the previous couple of hours.
Kevin Murphy
