Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

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)

The Sands of Time is a very nice example of how money can be wasted in the film industry when the producer thinks that a grand set design, special effects, and handsome actors in lead roles can accomplish everything. However, the story itself is unremarkable and undeveloped, and the characters get lost in it. Even actors like Ben Kingsley are shamefully underutilized, so I soon felt bored and sleepy. Of course, ladies can admire the warriors' biceps and the dresses of the movie beauties, and gentlemen can enjoy the clanging of weapons, but that doesn't change my conviction that The Sands of Time is also a waste of time. Overall impression: 45%. (06/03/2011)

A brisk film, in which there is practically no room for boredom (almost two hours pass by... like sand in an hourglass), the music was good, the special effects were good, the casting of all the roles (especially Ben Kingsley) was quite successful. I do have reservations about some of the dull dialogue, but considering that Prince is actually a simple summer popcorn flick with the goal of entertaining and not offending, it's not that bad. Perhaps the scriptwriters could have pushed the humor a little harder. And Mike Newell could've saved on the editing. I would definitely enjoy the parkour antics on the rooftops and one hard-to-see "escape" scene in particular more in longer shots. Three and a half. (30/06/2010)

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)

Jerry emptied the golden Persian treasury, exchanged it for dollars, and entrusted two hundred million to an English director of conversational films. The trailers warned us, but I really didn't see this fiasco coming. Newell gives you proof that in Pirates of the Caribbean, Verbinski wasn't just a cheap routinist with a bloated wallet after a few minutes, when he shoots all the scenes in detail so that the action is a confused and cluttered show of people jumping all over the castle walls. Then this repeats after twenty minutes without any significant innovation. The film also severely lacks any mystique, so there is no risk of being drawn into the plot (which is more or less non-existent anyway). I was downright ashamed of Jake, but I admired Gemma immensely for two hours. This type of beautiful and beautifully-sarcastic actress has been missing in Hollywood blockbusters for a long time. I’m giving it two stars just for the fact that Clash of the Titans pissed me off a little more than this. I actually left the movie theater for 5 minutes in the second third, thinking I was going to give up... (19/06/2010)