Mass Movie Reviews – Prince of Persia

Okay, the day after the comic book based film, I went and saw the video game based film. Yes, it was a busy week.

While I'm a long time fan of video games in general and can get quite addicted to them from time to time, there are some games that I have never played or that just slipped through the cracks. One of them is the Prince of Persia series of games, so going into the film I knew very little about the franchise and even less about the story. This didn't stop me from getting into the film from the very beginning and definitely didn't stop me from enjoying it. The visuals were amazing and flawless and the story interesting. They kept the story fairly simple because the concentration was obviously on the action and visuals but it was still an interesting story with enjoyable characters and an ending that was somewhat unexpected.

The film centers around Dastan (Jake Gyllenhal), a young man who was adopted into the Persian royal family when he was a poor orphan living on the streets. At the time, the King saw something special in the boy and chose to raise him with his other two sons. What happens because of that decision, the interaction of the brothers and their choices in life are much of the main idea that threads though the story. Along the way, Dastan meets Tamina (Gemma Arterton) who is princess of another country and guardian of a very special treasure.

The way Dastan moves and fights makes it really easy to see that this was based on a game and not reality but it's really fun to watch and pulls you in very quickly. It actually reminded me of the real life sport called Parkour (aka Freerunning). The shots are clean and the CGI quite good with only the occasional 'shaky cam' shot to annoy the hell out of me. Hollywood has become far too enamored of that technique in order to both convey action and movement and hide any flaws in the CGI or the stunts. I keep hoping that film makers will realize that we have steady cams for a reason but so far, no luck.

Again, in all, an over all enjoyable film and definitely worth seeing in the cinemas rather than waiting for it to be out on DVD. The action sequences alone are great on the big screen!