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I remember playing the original Prince of Persia videogame on the computer when I was a kid. In fact, it was my favorite game for a long time. The basic premise was that you needed to jump a lot, because if you didn’t jump a lot then you would fall into a pit of spikes and die. The end. Cool! Fun! But even in the height of my Prince of Persia fandom, I never thought “this should be a movie.” Of course, around the same time I also loved going to Disneyworld, because WHO DOESN’T, and at no point at the height of my Disneyworld fandom did I ever think the Pirates of the Caribbean ride should be a movie, and yet I found the first movie in that series to be exceedingly enjoyable! (I should also point out that when I was a child, I had a successful career as a Hollywood development executive, which is why it is so meaningful that I didn’t see the hidden potential in these franchises. Otherwise, I was green-lighting stuff left and right, for sure.) Unfortunately for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Jake Gyllenhaal is no Johnny Depp. He’s barely even a Keira Knightley! Although, they definitely got the “jumping a ton” part right. No one will ever complain that Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time didn’t have enough jumping in it.
Speaking of jumping, let us JUMP into talking more about this movie! (BARF!):
So, wait, does anyone know what happened? I’m just kidding, BUT ONLY KIND OF. Like, those trailers were always so unnecessarily confusing, and now I understand why: because the movie was so unnecessarily confusing. They did their best at conveying that to us ahead of time, I will give them that. “How are we ever going to get anyone to see this painfully convoluted movie about a magic dagger and a buried crystal full of time sand?” “Well, we could just feature quiet, dramatic images of Jake Gyllenhaall and Gemma Arterton, both of whom are very attractive, looking attractive?” “No, we should definitely do our best to condense two hours of winding, nonsensical plot into a two minute version that makes as much sense of this ridiculous movie as possible.” “Done.” I’m not sure I have ever seen a movie that had as many scenes in which the main character has to just flat out EXPLAIN what the hell is going on while pretending that he’s having a normal human conversation. I’m sure if you go to the “Memorable Quotes” page on IMDB the whole thing is just like:
Prince Dastan: It was my uncle Pizza, not my brother, Gargamel, who killed my father, the king, who is not my true father, because I was born a pauper, with the poisoned cloak, after we ransacked the holy city of Ishtar, and now we must return the sacred magic time dagger to the Cave of Forgetting before it gets into the wrong hands and is plunged into the Time Crystal and the world is destroyed but also there are Ring Wraiths on our trail so kiss me.
Woof. Slow down, Jake Gyllenhaal! And stop smiling! You smiled throughout the entire movie! We get it! You have a charming smile! Relax!
Of course, the movie wasn’t that hard to understand since its plot convolutions were all just lazily stolen from other movies and TV shows. There were bits of Lord of the Rings in there. Star Wars. Some Quantum Leap. And how mad was Jerry Bruckheimer just weeks before the release of his tent pole summer blockbuster, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, to see the last few episodes of Lost and realize that he wasn’t the only one with a MAGICAL LIGHT CAVE THAT CONTAINS THE HEART OF THE WORLD?
“I’m going to find a loophole, and I’m going to kill J.J. Abrams!”
Why did Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton always insist on kissing at literally the single worst moment imaginable? I mean, I’m all for the release of DRAMATIC TENSION through ROMANTIC INTRIGUE, but are you guy seriously making out when you are surrounded by trained shadow assassins? Oh, the evil Final Boss is about to plunge the Time Knife into the Time Stone in this underground hellscape, destroying the world as we know it, but you guys are going to stand chest-to-chest on this one-person outcropping of crumbling rock and hold a lingering kiss followed by some exchanged meaningful glances before dealing with the situation. I guess that’s not any worse than the fact that the Time Dagger is LITERALLY supposed to be a cock. Right? So many references to the Time Dagger being Jake Gyllenhaal’s cock! This movie was clearly made by a grad still trying to put the finishing touches on their Masters Thesis concerning the “Western Dominance of the Male Gaze.”
Speaking of Western Dominance (read: racism): do we need to talk about why everyone in this movie about the ancient Persia was acted entirely by white people with British accents? We don’t, right? I didn’t think so. MOVING ON.
Um, Gemma Arterton? YOWZA! I know that she was in James Bond: Quantum Of Solace, but I didn’t really notice her because I was paying so much attention to my wife, Olga Kurylenko, so that I could tell her what a good job she did at the after-party. Now I have two wives! Just kidding. She’s a human being, not some beautiful, stunning piece of meat! And so sassy, right guys?! She was the Prinsass of Persass. Haha, whatever. “She can hold her own!” Right. That was definitely the point of her character for sure. As for the rest of the performances: I hope Dame Ben Kingsley enjoys his new pool house. Seriously. He deserves a new pool house. I know how expensive pool houses can get. Well, no I don’t. But I can imagine they get very expensive? And far be it from me to criticize an acting legend’s cash-grab. Get that cash, Dame! Jake Gyllenhaal on the other hand: whoops! I mean, it’s not his fault. He did the best he could. They just shouldn’t have let him try in the first place. Usually, Hollywood movies are pretty by-the-numbers, and while you might get a surprisingly GREAT performance from one actor over another, it’s rare to see someone actually “miscast.” They A-list crop are all pretty good at their jobs, and with the addition of millions of dollars in make-up and pretty costumes, it’s all just showbiz. Usually. Not here. It was like watching a two-hour, 200 million dollar (200 MILLION DOLLARS!) mistake.
“If only the Magic Sacred Time Dagger was real, then maybe we could get a do-over!”
Oh well.
All of that being said, I actually did have fun. At the very least, I was less bored during this than during Robin Hood, even though I’m sure Robin Hood was technically a better movie. Because “techinically” speaking, this was a really bad movie. Lazy. Silly. Miscast. Convenient Ending Out Of Nowhere Where Somehow Putting The Time Dagger In The Time Sand Crystal Doesn’t End The World But Actually Takes Jake Gyllenhaal To An Almost Impossibly Convenient Point In The Past To Fix Everything. Also Floaty Memory Flashback Faces In The Time Sand Magic Basement Crystal, Really? But somehow still kind of fun. To be fair, I might have had a mild case of sun poisoning. Almost definitely. And I was a little drunk still from brunch. It’s not my fault that I know how to have brunch. Just like it’s not Jake Gyllenhaal’s fault that he doesn’t know how to do a good job in a movie he shouldn’t be in. The fault for that lies firmly with your boyfriend, Mr. Bruckheimer.
“Aww, no fair!”
And now, feel free to plunge your Opinions Dagger into the Comments. Because just like in the movie, almost nothing will happen.
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So, Jake Gyllenhaal plays a guy with the power to travel backwards in time?
Wake up, Prince of Persia
He’s pretty.
Get that out of my face, Capu Flapu, and please get that in my face incredimarc [ew ew ew I'm sorry].
It’s two-thousand-frickin-ten and the best movie made from a videogame is somehow still “Resident Evil”, which was awful.
We can put a man on the moon but we can’t convert bits of code into watchable movie experiences? I’m starting to wonder if it’s even possible anymore.
As absolutely alien and hard-to-follow-but-who-cares Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is to non-fans of the video game itself, FFVII:AC was a great companion piece and epilogue to the game. Lots of closure. And the action scenes are obviously the best part and are the stuff of wet-nerdgasm-dreams.
Oh man, my friends and I decided to watch that once because the previews were so pretty, and it was SO CONFUSING, because only one person had ever played the game and couldn’t even remember what happened! There was a lot of pausing so we could have a discussion about who people were and what was happening.
Duh Aficionado Magazine: Super Mario Bros. is the best movie made from a videogame. Did King Koopa’s passing mean nothing?
“I can hear your fucking Warp Pipe, you stupid shit!” – King Koopa
ipso facto moon landing hoax!
Resident Evil? I vote for Silent Hill. Obviously it didn’t really make any sense, but it at least looked fairly pretty and sounded great which is more than most video game movies can even say. Resident Evil was a zombie movie with maybe 15 minutes of zombies.
Anyone hear ever watch TANG on giantbomb? It’s really put this movie in perspective for me.
Oh, I wanted the Silent Hill movie to be great so very, very badly. And it did have some stunning visuals and great sound. But the story… so choppy, so gross, so over-the-top.
I do find it super weird that there hasn’t been a knock-out film based on a video game yet. There are plenty of good candidates out there.
Was the first TRON movie from the 80s before or after TRON the video game? I thought that movie was pretty rad, back in the day.
Friend.
It’s a bit of a stretch to refer to your sixties as ‘your childhood’ isn’t it, Gabe?
When I saw that, I was all, “huh, didn’t know the original Prince of Persia was released in Kinescope.”
Yay, bonus WMOAT!
Sex and the City 2 and Shrek 4Ever(or whatever) beat this at the box office! *gunshot!*
I’m still mad that Sex and the CIty 2 wasn’t the VMC pick for the weekend! I’m in line to see it for the 23rd time right now, so I don’t know what happened in that Prince of Persia movie (like everyone else in America). But come on! SACT2 4 LIFE!
posted from my iPad
geotag: 4th circle of Hell
every time people abbreviate that sex and the city movie title I think of Jap SCAT porn
Of course you do.
Were there plenty of SPIKES, Gabe? I hope there were plenty of spikes.
And if there were plenty of spikes, I think the film would’ve been a helluva lot more entertaining and suspenseful if Jake Gyllenhaal reprised his role as Bubble Boy.
There were no spikes at all that I can remember, though at this point I’m no longer surprised when an adaptation completely ignores the primary plot points (points!) of its source material.
HA! Good one! Also, that’s disappointing that there were no spikes.
Also, I’m having a great time over here imagining Teddy Roosevelt sitting in a packed theater, chomping on Whoppers malted milk balls and all the while scoffing at the action sequences and observing the teenagers seated next to him making out.
“I SAY! That young chap with the limey affectation needs to get a wiggle on! This moving picture is pure hooey! HmpH! This theatre has turned into a bona fide PETTING PANTRY! If you’ll excuse me, you two, I must go ‘iron’ my ‘shoe laces’, if you please. “
Spikes? A small independent films like this can’t afford spikes.
“So, wait, does anyone know what happened? Who’s that man? Why does he want to kill the other man? What did she just say to him? Will Bob Evans be open after this? Do you think Fredrick got his birthday card? He hasn’t called in weeks, which is fine, I’m sure he’s busy. Why are they jumping so much? My hips hurt from sitting so long. I’m not sure I like this movie.”
- Gabe, at a volume audible to everyone in the theater except it’s intended recipient who is sitting RIGHT NEXT TO HIM!
“all the best movies are expensive and confusing. go team!”
-hollywood.
Ghosts ‘n Goblins needs a feature-length rendition. Or just a ten minute sequence that repeats for two hours in the theater until you freak out and chuck your controller at the TV. Seriously, that game was so hard.
I vote for Frogger.
what about pitfall? or river raid?
duck hunt?
Ugh that game. And then when you think you’ve beaten the game it’s all “HAHA J/K BEAT IT AGAIN BITCH.”
My young years are haunted by that game (GET IT?!)
Can we please stop casting white Americans using a British accent as people of Arab decent?
Why didn’t we cast THIS guy as the lead?
I mean, he’s at least a British actor with a REAL British accent.
It would have made this movie 25% more watchable.
When my husband was watching 24 this season, I was pretty convinced that this guy would have made a much better Prince of Persia since he’s, you know, Persian:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0475988/
Is Iran considered an Arab country? *heads to the source of all knowledge in the universe*
Ah. Wikipedia sayeth that Iran, with its 3 percent Arabic-speaking population, is part of the global Arabic diaspora (which also includes the U.S., Brazil, and France among other nations) but not considered an Arab nation.
(Your point is absolutely valid; I’m just a pedant.)
I respect and salute your Wikipedia search and concede that perhaps Arab was the wrong term.
Gyllenhaal is from Swedish and Jewish decent and clearly spray tanned to hell. It’s bothersome.
Plus, I just miss Sayid.
Richard Alpert’s eye-liner is Persian
The movie I saw took place in the desert, involved a lot of jumping, cock/dagger references, inappropriate kissing and harem pants too. Unfortunately I think I was in the wrong theater as it was full of women and gay men. I’m sure Prince of Persia was infinitely more watchable.
I bet it was a wash.
BTW, This right here…
“Prince Dastan: It was my uncle Pizza, not my brother, Gargamel, who killed my father, the king, who is not my true father, because I was born a pauper, with the poisoned cloak, after we ransacked the holy city of Ishtar, and now we must return the sacred magic time dagger to the Cave of Forgetting before it gets into the wrong hands and is plunged into the Time Crystal and the world is destroyed but also there are Ring Wraiths on our trail so kiss me.”
… has made my day.
Is it too much to hope for a YCMIU that takes place in Jerry Bruckheimer’s writers room as they plan out the sequel, ‘Prince of Persia 2: Spike Through A Dead Man’s Chest’?
Ooh! Or Better yet, have it set at a TABLE READ of PoP2 with all the actors and Jerry Bruckheimer!
Gemma Arteron is pretty
OH MY GOD SHE’S SO FREAKING HOT
You used the word freaking instead of fucking because you wanted to protect my eyes from obscenity
normally i skip the movie club posts because i rarely go see movies in a timely manner (i think i made it to see avatar in like march or april), and i know that this was last week’s pick, but i saw robin hood last night and woof! it was like medieval libertarian porn.
Okay, that actually sounds kind of hot.
right, except the porn in question only involves plowing fields and other types of manual labor, since hardcore libertarians only truly get off on the idea that the only worthy people are yeoman laborers who don’t need government for any reason, not even protection, since duh they obviously also know how to swordfight super good.
i mean, it got to the point where i was actually waiting for a sex scene just to break up the monotony, but nope. didn’t even get one of those.
I saw MacGruber this weekend. It was fun! I will probably not catch up with this week’s movie club.
I didn’t see this. After seeing Sex and the City 2 I had my fill of white people in the desert.
We know the film had plenty of jumping, but did it have any jumping AND mythical daggering?
I haven’t seen this but I own the game. GAMECUBE! And from reading Gabe’s synopsis it seems that they lifted the plot completely from the game. Videogames have many great qualities, plot, Hollywood, is not one of them. You lazy fucker.
Still Gabe, it’s probably better than that movie adaptation from the forties of “running down the tenement street entertaining yourself with a stick and a tire”? Amirite?
I would disagree with the statement that plot cannot be great in videogames. There are many videogames that have amazing stories to follow (pretty much any BioWare game). And Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was a better story than any of the crappy prequels.
/nerdrant
Hmmm, I was going to call you something, jokingly, which referenced the Iron Man 2 post but man that doesn’t feel right typing it out. Maybe in part because I wasn’t part of that discussion.
Anyway. I think that while games can have very satisfying plots, the production qualities, acting, writing, direction (of a sort) are fairly sub par. They also have very different objectives in relation to how a plot will progress to its end. To quote somebody or other from twitter, it’s like comparing apples and oranges.
Having said that, I haven’t finished a game since around the time Sands of Time came out. Though I got about 80% through the last Zelda when my flatmate’s brother took his Wii back. So what would I know?
When is the Zelda movie coming out? I’m guessing it stars Orlando Bloom
I write for video games, among other things, and I can tell you that any shortcomings games might have vs. movies in terms of plot, character, dialog, etc., are almost exclusively production-based. Until recently, game companies just didn’t care about the writing, or the plot. They really did not think it mattered. Their focus was, and remains, on user experience — and it should be.
That said, it’s a bit unfair to say that games are “sub par” when compared to movies. Red Dead Redemption is better than many western-themed films in both plot and characterization (and it goes places that they cannot); Uncharted 2 is better than the new Indiana Jones movie; and COD: Modern Warfare is better than most seasons of 24. It seems that a lot of the experience with games you referenced comes with outdated games and/or games in the “Nintendo Mold,” which shirks plot almost entirely in exchange for all-ages accessibility. But as games have become more cinematic over the last 3 to 5 years, their plot and execution has grown by leaps and bounds — beyond the capability of the average Hollywood blockbuster, in some cases.
ok, 1. The dagger moving toward that hole while they were kissing was just too much for me to handle. Disney, if there was one thing I could always count on, it was your SUBTLE phallic imagery. Don’t let me down! I am pretty sure even the smallest of children were like “I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, THAT IS A PENIS.”
and 2. I went into this with Gabe’s expectations exactly. PotC was fun and ridiculous, and this looks the same! I can enjoy a stupid, fun summer movie, right? WRONG. This the most lazily thrown together screenplay I can remember in my entire movie-watching life. In almost every scene, I was shaking my head wondering why they were paying no attention to their own worthless attempts at character development. All kinds of cool things could have happened in this movie, but only like one or two cool things actually happened.
Seriously, recruit one sophomore writing major, allow him ONE DRAFT ONLY, and I guarantee he could come up with something more interesting than this, or at least less face-palmy.
Seeing as so much awful news from the weekend has been mentioned today I thought the Gaza flotilla thing would get mentioned in this post. You know because Persia? Is it not serious and very worrying news thats too?
And what about Louise Bourgeois? Geez Gabe, read a paper wouldya?
womp womp
did you see the one debbie downer skit with lindsey lohan and everybody couldnt stop from cracking up? that one killed me the worst. aka the best
Hey Steve Winwood, I just had a look at that. I mean I guess it’s pretty good but didn’t most of the laughs come from the fact that those people couldn’t keep a straight face so, like, they just weren’t very good at their job? Wah-Wahhh.
I think every first day back after the weekend should have a round up of all the terrible things that have happened since Friday. That way you’ll love the videos of trampoline accidents even more.
Live every day like it’s the last video of a trampoline accident you’ll ever see. Or something.
I have no idea what you’re talking about
It’s official, I can’t have children.
-Nick Madsen
Why did they rename the Mummy franchise “Prince of Persia”?
My favorite parts of the movie were the roughly 600 instances where the phrase “prince of Persia” was worked into dialogue.
Man, I don’t know what it was, but I actually pretty much loved this movie.
Well, maybe I know what it was:
- I saw it for free.
- I played Sands of Time (Gamecube as well! Friends forever, batteredgnome?), so not only could I follow the plot (although you are right that the non-apocalypse-perfect-time-travel-deus-ex-machina ending was ridiculous, like seriously, huh?), but I also was not bothered by the British accents, because at least they didn’t have a SCOTTISH guy yelling at Dastan while he had to move some big cogs into place to make a bridge drop.
- I saw it with my best friend, who also played Sands of Time, and we had a grand old time elbowing each other whenever a scene mirrored the game almost exactly (like when the camera zoomed ahead to show Dastan’s objective and how he needed to get there, or when he wavers on the balance beam and almost falls, and when oh dear I’m so sorry I’ll shut up about the game now).
- Jake Gyllenhaal is pretty.
I basically adored Jake Gyllenhaal in this. I tthought he brought charm and fun to the role, I thought his acting was top-notch, and I liked his smile very much!
And maybe that’s the main way Gabe’s opinion of the movie and mine differed in actual substance, rather than just in degree, and maybe it’s what colored our perceptions of the movie as a whole. Because I have the authority to speak for my entire gender (TMYK) I will suggest that maybe it’s a ladything? Women be shoppin’ and also watchin’ Jake Gyllenhaal do backflips?
I did not love this movie. I know what it was:
-I had this game on a demo game disc for my old Mac. It only had 2 levels and I would end up continually just make him jump up in the air and hump the wall.
-There were no spikes.
Young Sen_Tankerbell: “Dad, can we get the full Prince of Persia game? It’s only $30!”
Sen_Tankerbell Sr.: “What the hell you need to spend $30 for? You got two perfectly good levels right there.”
Okay since no one else seems to have brought it up yet, I guess I have to: Mr. Gyllenhaal was not shirtless often enough. It is just a fact. On the basis of the trailer and behind-the-scene photographs on this very website, I went in with the not-unreasonable expectation the Jake Gyllenhaal would be shirtless ALL THE TIME. There’s even this one moment early on when Dostam’s shirt gets pinned to a wall with a thrown dagger, and everyone in the entire theater says to themselves “Now Jake Gyllenhaal will HAVE to rip off his shirt and spend the rest of the movie with his luscious torso exposed. But no! he’s wearing TWO shirts!
In the end, the total amount of time Jake spends shirtless can be measured in seconds — mostly the (admittedly lovely) wrestling scene that serves as his first appearance on screen in the movie. Oh the expectations that wrestling scene set up! I think I speak for EVERYONE who saw the movie when I shout:
SHOW US YOUR TITS, JAKE GYLLENHAAL.
(or maybe this is just a gaymalething?)
I will now go through the entire day waiting for an excuse to use the phrase “luscious torso” in casual conversation.
Work is going to be so AWKWARD.
Hooray for the Community reference!
“Mimosas at brunch…MLIGG”–Gabe
I loved how the movie had Dastan, the very pretty Gyllenhaal, LEAPT and MOW DOWN guard after guard to get to someone important to tell them something very important with very dramating close-ups – to have the person DEAD seconds after. Very productive. And then when the princess was dangling to her death before the whole world blew up and she told him let her die for the sake of the world – I don’t know. I guess yelling “NOO! I’M DYING – but srsly, save the world – DYING!” while he did his heroic anguishy thing was not very smart either.
I liked Iron Man 2 a lot more but this wasn’t bad either. Plenty of prettiness and somersaults and shiny gold (and more gold!). I also liked how there was this adult in back that sucked his teeth derisively during those poorly timed kisses. As in, the moment they leaned in a bit too close, I was reminded this was a Disney movie by an uncomfortable stranger. (I was also expecting more timetwisting, too, bro.)