Voice of the Last Fenix

On Saturday evening my wife Dragged me away from my gaming time to go watch Prince of Persia, a film I wasn't overly eager to see before its DVD release. The Prince of Persia, Sands of Time Trilogy has been one of my favorite and most loved franchises, I could see no way Hollywood could make a decent, let along good, attempt at a movie based of the game.

The movie starts of by showing us that Prince Dustan (Jake Gyllenhaal) was not born of royal blood but that the King (What happened to Sultan or Sheik?) saw young Dustan risk his life for a fellow street urchin and decided to adopt him. The film then jump forward 15 years to the Persian Army looking over some Holy City believed to be supplying the enemies of Persia with weapons. Large battle ensues the Persian's being victorious thanks to the efforts of now adult Prince Dustan and his band of Gutter Trash (Fellow Street Urchins Maybe). The King is assassinated and Dustan is held responsible, he escapes with the ruler of the Holy City Princes Tamina (Where the Hell is Farah?) with the Dagger of Time hitched to his belt, having picked it up off a defeated Persian.

From here on the plot twist and turns as Dustan struggles to find out who really killed his Adopted Father, along the way he discovered the daggers time bending properties but manages to use all the sand up. This lack of sand means there is only about 4 or so scenes where its actually bending time and it now also only reverses time, no more slow motion wall-running for the young prince.

The story does manage to have some sherd of Originality as it doesn't simply try and retell the plot of the first game. This is already a step in the right direction, however the plot does feel schizophrenic with the Prince and Princess rushing all over the desert from one location to the next trying to prove Dustan's innocence, well thats what he tries to do, the Princess on the other hand is more interested in stealing back her dagger. The constant to and fro leaves alot of time for dialog but the city where the dagger is kept would have been enough to set the entire movie in.

There are some good action sequences but it is a crying shame that only one features the dagger. But there are alot of slow-mo action moves, especially featuring arrows.

All in all not the appalling load of crap it could have been but still a Far Cry from the brilliance of the Games. Its Nice to see Hollywood is able to take an game and retell it in their own way, however I still believe that Games & Movies shouldn't mix. Im sure there are alot of Fresh Ideas flowing around so it is unnecessary to continue this constant reconversion of Games to Movies & Vice Versa.

If you need to take your girlfriend/wife to a movie and want to get out of being dragged to Sex in the City, go see this. The women will love beefy Jake and the guyz at least wont be completely bored. [There is one awesome cleavage shot]