DVD REVIEW:
"PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME" ☆☆☆
I haven't written on this blog in a while. I feel I owe you that. However, not due to lack of interest, or boredom, or anything close to not sharing my thoughts on movies with you all. The fact is I'm broke. Put in a corner. Shamed. Why? I'm a recently graduated, out of work college student, and for the past summer since my completion at school I've done little to jack but flock to the movies and spend all of what spare money I had on them, all for the joy of telling you about how I feel on the latest releases. (And how could a movie buff not resist going to the movies?) But hey! Things are looking up for me recently! After I spent all my change and haven't had a chance to see anything, but instead sit on my butt scouring the internet day and night, thinking about writing a screenplay but not even getting past keying the slug line, I had a sobering thought. With no movies to see, with no basis to write about them, and nothing else better to do - and, seemingly more final, a dead car that I've somehow been waiting with horror to ultimately give out - I finally decided it was time to leave the cold coop that is Chicago for the warm, high-altitude climate that is the West, or more importantly for us movie guys, Los Angeles - Hollywoodland. I fly out this coming Sunday. But no fears! The great thing about writing internet blogs is you can do it from anywhere. All I need is my laptop. And a movie theater...
Anyway, enough say-so on my soon-to-be rising multimillion dollar movie career, lets talk about movies. And in this case, "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time." First off, as you may know, it didn't do much. Not for box office, or for critics. Consensus is more like a virus than just tons of infected cells getting together to cause one; as soon as one scathing review hits, all the rest are bound to follow and infect as well. Critics, and audiences, too, love to bash movies, especially ones that are expensively mounted, fixedly marketed, and, like most big-budget movies, meant to start an ever continuing successful franchise. And certainly ones that plummet and shatter into a million pieces.
No, "Prince of Persia" didn't start a franchise, and with a modest income of $335m worldwide it probably only just made everything it had spent with little to gain. And that makes us all happy and relieved, for some reason. Because don't we want to see a big, calculated risk fail? For huge, Hollywood summer tyrants, often based on popular, existing material, to fall off there tentpoles? For Disney, Jerry Bruckheimer and Jake Gyllenhaal to finally have a fluke at the box office? And why? Because we should be jealous at such ludicrous numbers that they get? That it's such a lavish production, made with all the best intentions, with some of the most talented guys in showbiz hurdling their craft at what we secretly hope will be a embarrassing failure, because we get off at seeing huge Zeppelins crash and burn, despite how lovingly and meticulously they are built, sometimes from the ground up?
"Prince of Persia" wasn't built from the ground up, but despite that it doesn't deserve such nonsensical criticism. It's a good show, often spectacular and dazzling, but all the while an entertaining medieval fantasy that might be the most beautifully constructed Middle-Eastern romantic epic ever made. And I really think it's only flaw, though quite major, is it's lack of concentration on character, and also relies too heavily on the action and glamour and audacious stunt work. But it's a fine effort, written with no action/fantasy cliches or meaningless gimmicks in sight, and directed with canny fun by Brit Mike Newell (of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"). The movie is more often decent and wittingly written than ridiculously penned, the actors play with hammy panache, and it all results in just pure over-the-top epic fun. Everyone seemed to have had a blast making this summer movie.
"Prince of Persia" isn't exactly memorable, nor does it leap the bounds of it's formula, like popular McGuffin quest adventures Indiana Jones or The Lord of the Rings, but it's a bang for your buck. It might not be worth that second viewing, but it's certainly worth the first. Give it a chance. You can spend more than a dollar at the Redbox or $4.99 a month on Netflix. Like $10 at the theater?... And hey, haven't you been meaning to see this on DVD anyway?
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