Prince of Persia review

So Brooke and I finally decided to have a date night last night.

After much deliberating.

"I wanna go see Eclipse."

"I don't."

We finally decided on Prince of Persia.

I've been a fan of the video game series, and so was reluctant to see it. I'd heard it was a stinkfest, and although I like to form my own opinions about movie, I gotta say it kinda knocks it down a notch when someone says a movies horrible.

For me it turned out to be quite the opposite. I thoroughly enjoyed it. That's not saying there was a few problems with it. For one the plot had nothing to do with what happened in the video games. There was a prince, a beautiful maiden, a dagger of time, and sands of time. That's about all the two had in common. That was okay for me though. I realize that was probably done so that you didn't need to play the video games to enjoy the film. Also there wasn't as much dagger usage as I would have preferred. There was about three scenes where Dastan (Yeah, they gave the Prince a name.) used the dagger to reverse time. It would have been cool if he could have done multiple time reversals, but with the way the plot went I understood why that didn't happen. Finally, my biggest qualm, was the fact that there were no sand creatures. I think it would have been pretty cool if they popped up now and then. It would have give Dastan a chance to refill the dagger like he does in the game, and qualm number two would have been fulfilled.

Now on to the good points. First off the plot was pretty solid in my opinion. It kept me from thinking about all those qualms I was having. I pride myself on going to a movie based on something else and overlooking those things that didn't correlate. A good plot goes along way in doing that for me. It had tons of action, but not so much so that there weren't moments that tugged at your heart strings or that filled in the plot. Secondly there was a good cast. Jake Gyllenhaal was a good Prince. He had the look of the Prince from the games, but also the personality. Able to have the intense purpose, while still making the occasional joke. Gemma Arterton was great as the princess Tamina. She could come across as both the arrogant royal, but also the caring ruler. Dastan's two brothers were probably my favorite. Without ruining too much they do a complete one-eighty in the film that was good to see. Now it probably won't come as a surprise the Ben Kingsley's character is the villain. Sorry if I ruin that for anybody, but it's kinda easy to see coming. He does good with being that underhanded villain that the characters around him don't see coming till it's too late.

Finally, the homages. They do a great job of translating the game action to film. Of course it isn't as fluid as in the games, but there's just some things you can't translate to live action. It made it more realistic in my opinion. You just can't have a character run across the wall for thirty seconds and have you believe he won't fall off. It was cool in the game, but not believable when you see an actual person do it. I also liked the Dark Prince look when Dastan uses the dagger. It pays respect to the character without having to explain him in the film.

Like I said I thoroughly enjoyed the film. Better than that so did Brooke, and she did not cry toward the end.