Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Newell is good with actors – the mischievous and sparkly Gyllenhaal / Arterton duet is a pleasure to watch – but Newell is desperate not to do it with epic sauce. Even in Harry Potter, it was noticeable when some of the conversations were the funniest and most impressive things about the film. Prince of Persia is putting on a sterile crown. Futile fancy magic with a "game-like" camera, parkour walled in by the editing, and duels that are wooden and lack anything. Some of the images are unbearably plastic instead of fabulously magical. Nevertheless, I had a very satisfying time with the film. As a fairytale it works (thanks to the actors), only the feeling of plastic harmlessness of the environment limits the fantasy. The Prince of Persia is such a nice Disney figure who doesn't offend. Sometimes he delights, sometimes he jumps around without even plucking out of lethargy. Too bad, the potential was there, and it was considerable. I will miss Jake's veal conception in action fantasy. (01/09/2010)

Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton are the two reasons that I am inclined to give this flick a higher rating. You won’t find a more likeable couple in any adventure spectacle. This film is driven by spectacular set designs, good music and a pleasantly exotic atmosphere, but what does affect the movie in a bad way is the minimum of original ideas, ignoring the potential of supporting characters and surprisingly confusing action scenes. Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy and Gore Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean were simply more refined. (20/05/2010)

The most talkative fairy tale that Scheherazade told us. Prince Dastan has an argument for everything, and Princess Tamina has the sharpest tongue ever known in the East, and among all the dialogues and arguments, one sometimes wishes for the storyteller's spirit to reappear, spreading the play around him in every step, jump, or duel. However, the plot pleased me more than I dared to expect. The game creator added exactly those plot twists that fascinated me in the original, and the dagger, the hourglass, the villain, and the chemistry of the main duo decided that the atmosphere of the Sands of Time had arrived. 70% (01/06/2010)

For the longest time, I didn't want to believe that a feature film inspired by a legendary play could be such a flop. Sometimes it's actually better to go through the play footage and let the movie sleep. The only thing here that had any potential was Gemma Arterton's princess, but even she couldn't get out of the shadow of the likes of Dejah Thoris. (23/03/2021)

The Action and cinematography are well-known from computer games (Assassin's Creed). The plot is empty, unnecessarily filtered, overcomplicated, and overly colorful. Uninteresting. Only the central duo is interesting, with well-crafted dialogue, but that is a bit too little for a 200 million USD film. The people behind it relied on attracting audiences with a similar hype to Avatar, but they forgot that James Cameron, besides excellent marketing and a certain astuteness in setting the boundaries between correctness and his own way, knows how to direct very well. Mike Newell has confirmed with this that he does not. (18/09/2010)