Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time Film Review

Disney is a company that has made a lot of very memorable films but there is a few films that people forget was made by Disney. This is also the first and to date only video game movie made by the company because Wreck It Ralph doesn't count as that wasn't based on any video game and so ladies and gentlemen I thought that I would remind you of this movie be bringing you my review of the film version of Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time.

The plot of the film is Prince Dastan is framed for the murder of his father and so with the help of a princess must stop the real villain from using a dagger that allows the person holding it to turn back time to make himself king. I honestly feel that the plot of the movie was pretty good and that mostly comes from the fact that the creator of the game came up with the story not due to the movie actually doing something new and different with the story.

Starring in the film is Jake Gyllenhaal as Dastan , Gemma Arterton as Tamina , Sir Ben Kingsley as Prince Nizam of Persia , Alfred Molina as Sheik Amar , Richard Coyle as Prince Tus of Persia , Toby Kebbell as Prince Garsiv of Persia , Ronald Pickup as King Sharaman , Reece Ritchie as Bis , Steve Toussaint as Seso , Darwin Shaw as Asoka and Gísli Örn Garðarsson as Hassansin Leader. This is something that will shock any SJW's who read my reviews but none of the actors in this film are of Persian decent.

As for what I thought about the acting in the film I honestly feel that it could have been alot better don't get me wrong the acting is really good but at the same time given how good alot of these actors are I expected better. Take for example Jake Gyllenhaal he's a great actor and he's solid in this film but to me he doesn't embody the character that well and so your very much a where that your seeing Jake Gyllenhaal playing a character and your not seeing the actual character the same thing is true for pretty much all of the characters your just seeing the actor and not the character and that was a huge issue for me.

The film is based on the 2003 game of the same name by writer Jordan Mechner which is also a reboot of the Prince Of Persia series which Mechner created. So to say that he's the heart and soul of the franchise would be a huge understatement and the film makers did a great thing by bringing him in to work on the film even tho he only gets a story by credit but he was originally due to write the script but Disney replaced him for some reason.

Now i've not played the game in well over a decade so I can't say for sure if the film is a true representation of the game. I can say that based of my research for the film that the film does indeed borrow elements from other Prince Of Persia games now what those games are I don't know since i've only played Sands Of Time but it's great to see that some effort went into crafting an original story and not just doing a repeat of the game's story.

The CGI for the film was handled by Moving Picture Company , Framestore and Cinesite and if you've seen any of the films that any of these companies have worked on and depending on where your reading this review you'll know i'm mentioned them alot then you'll know how good they can be. I say can be because this isn't the best film to highlight there effects just because in my opinion and I know this is going to sound weird but there effects look like something you'd see in the game and not something you'd want to see in the movie.

Now apparently Jordan Mechner was considering making an animated film based on the Prince Of Persia series when he got the offer from Disney. I personally think that he should have made it as an animated film just because I feel that the world of the game would better suit the realm of animation then it does the world of live action and if it was animated then you could do alot more stuff from the games which for various reasons you can't do with live actors but that's just what I think he might have had a good reason for going with Disney.

As with alot of action films for some dumb reason there's a romance in this film and yeah depending on where your seeing this review then you know how I feel about those especially when there not needed. Which is honestly the worst thing I can say about this romance because if you removed it from the movie then nothing would be lost at least with The Scorpion King as useless as that romance angle was it still adding a small something to the plot this one adds nothing at all to the films story which is never a good thing.

Now people seem to have forgotten that this was a Disney film and I kind of understand why since it is a pretty bad film. However at the same time you'd have thought that at least someone would remember this film but that's not how it appears and it's something that while I do understand because like I said it's a pretty bad film that doesn't mean that we shouldn't stop talking about it if anything we should talk about it more because it's a bad film and that way we can hopefully convince any film studio to pick up the rights to the game and do it right but if we stop talking about it then it would just be lost to the sands of time.

I will say that unlike alot of video game movies this is perhaps one of the better ones granted that really isn't a high bar to reach but is still a point in the films favour. There was a time a few years ago when I thought that video game movies were getting better with the likes of the new Tomb Raider movie being actually pretty good but then the Assassin's Creed movie came out and proved that the Tomb Raider movie was a fluke so for me video game movies are either going to be really good or just really bad with even the films that are really just being OK at best.

So to me it really is shocking when a video game movie is out and it's actually pretty enjoyable because alot of them while they are enjoyable it's for the wrong reasons. This film for me is one of the video game movies that are great at when compared to the other ones because of how enjoyable it is but at the same time I feel that it could have been much better and even Jake Gyllenhaal admitted in 2019 that he wasn't right for this movie thus admitting that it could have been better.

Since this is an action film that does mean that we have to talk about that's seen within the film itself and I honestly do feel that the action is where the film is more true to The Sands Of Time video game. Since you do see the prince do alot of the things that he would do in the game and you do see some of the weapons as well my issue tho with the action is I just didn't care enough about the characters to care about what was going on in the action and that for me is big issue since it's something that very easily could have been fixed with a re-write of the script.

Overall like I said I do fully understand since it is a pretty bad film on top of it also being one that's pretty forgettable. I do say that this is one of the better video game movies but that's only when you compare it to all of the bad ones that are out there if this was the first ever video game movie i'd say it was one of the worst but knowing there are alot worse ones out there it makes you more forgiving towards this one and so this film gets 5.5 out of 10 from me.