Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Release Date: May 28th, 2010

Click here for the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Trailer.

As a boy Dastan(Jake Gyllenhaal) was an ordinary orphan until one day, while running from a group of Persian guards, he was approached by by the King of Persia, King Sharaman(Ronald Pickup), who adopted Dastan as a son. Fifteen years later Dastan, along with his brothers Tus and Garsiv, plan to attack the Holy city of Alamut under the assumption that the city is selling weapons to the Persian's enemies.

Once the city has been captured, Dastan finds an ornate dagger, which he keeps as a trophy from the battle. King Sharaman arrives in the city along side his brother Nizam(Sir Ben Kingsley) and holds a celebration in the main hall of the Alamut Palace. During the celebration, the princess of Alamut, Princess Tamina(Gemma Arterton) is brought before the king as a gift for Tus. Tamina, who is escorted by Dastan, realizes that the dagger he carries is the mythical Dagger of Time that she is entrusted to protect.

During the celebration, Dastan is framed for the murder of his father and flees the city along with Tamina. Nizam, who has gained the trust of Tus and Garsiv, organizes a hunt for the Dastan for the sole reason of acquiring the Dagger of Time, which has the ability to rewind the very fabrics of time itself. With it Nizam plans to rewind time to his childhood where he saved his brother from a lion. Nizam plans to let his brother die so that he may one day become the King of Persia. Dastan, along with Tamina embarks on a journey to save not only himself and the dagger, but the world as he knows it.

I know what you are thinking, "Oh great, another video game based movie. Just another way to disappoint me." Well if you are thinking that then shame on you for hating it before you see it! Sadly, the fact is that most movies based on video games do suck something awful. In this adaptation of the incredibly popular 2003 game, Jake Gyllenhaal and director Mike Newell attempt to do what seems to be impossible, make a good video game based movie and for the most part, they succeed.

If you are familiar with the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time video game then you know that the concept for a great movie is extremely possible. The game offered incredible visuals (for its time), an insane combat system, intense acrobatic platforming and a game mechanic that truly changed the way you solved puzzles and defeated enemies. Now, incorporating this into a movie worthy of sitting through is the tricky part. So now for the review.

I am going to start if with my complaints first. Being a huge fan of the game, the biggest disappointment I had with the film was the story. The movie plot and story was entirely different from the game story and I think that the only thing that the two had in common was an acrobatic prince, a sassy princess and a time-controlling dagger. Lets compare them side-by-side. In the game, the Prince was born a Prince and had no name. In the movie he was an orphan adopted by the king and was named Dastan. The game: enemies were sand creatures that possessed the bodies of other people and were brought on by the betrayal of the king's trusted adviser called The Vizier. The movie: the prince fought humans and was betrayed by his uncle.

Those are the major ones though the Princess' name was changed from Farrah to Tamina and the story took place in the city of Alamut mainly as opposed to Persia like the game. But, while there were gigantic differences from the game to the film plot, the film plot was still very entertaining.

One of the main aspects of the game was the extreme agility of the Prince and Gyllenhaal seemed to display that perfectly. The nimble, high flying and crafty free running in the movie instantly brought me back to my times with the game. The film's combat was also very good. The Prince in the game uses many acrobatic moves to dispatch his foes as does Gyllenhaal in the film. The fight scenes with the Hashshashins towards the end were particularly entertaining.

While the fighting was great, the movie is called The Sands of Time so it would seem that this is an important concept. The Sands of Time are controlled by a device known as The Dagger of Time. It allows the user of the dagger to rewind time for one minuet and only the holder is aware. The scenes where the dagger was used to rewind time were, in my opinion, incredible. I felt that they truly captured the spirit of the game and how the time elements were controlled. Not only did they look amazing and added a new stylization, the really just felt genuine.

Performance wise Gyllenhaal made a very convincing visual Prince. There has been a lot of controversy over a white actor portraying a Persian character but I think that Gyllenhaal had a very close visual resemblance to the game character. The only thing that didn't make sense was the Prince, and all the other characters', accents. They were all done with a British voice with a slight Middle-Eastern draw. The game characters spoke the same way but I just find it odd.

Gemma Arterton did fine as Princess Tamina. She wasn't annoying or helpless like some female characters can be and she seemed to have good chemistry with Gyllenhaal. I was very pleased with Sir Ben Kingsley's performance. Kingsley is such a well-defined actor and his role as the main antagonist was a perfect fit. Had the director not changed the character to an Uncle and left it has a Vizier, Kingsley still would have been amazing because I think he played more like that character. Alfred Molina added in a perfect blend of humor to the action packed movie, bringing the audience down from the adrenaline rush to allowing them to catch their breath.

Overall, if you look at this movie as just an original move, it does pretty good. The story is unique and the acting is good. Add that to great action and some stylish visuals and you have a solid all around experience. If you, like me, come into this seeing it as a video game based movie, then you are in for a surprise. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time the best video game based movie to date. It may stray drastically far away from the original game's plot, which is strongly disappointing, but the film does do a fantastic job of recreating the epic feel and style that the game had. Let's just hope they don't do the unthinkable and make a video game based off of a movie based off of a video game (that would almost be too much).

If you are looking for a solid move to see, then you should definitely check this one out. If you are looking for a movie based on a video game that doesn't completely suck then you will definitely want to see this film. Had the film stayed with the original plot then it's score would have been higher but it is still a good film.

I give Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time 8 Suicidal Racing Ostriches out of 10.

Clash of the Titans

Release Date: April 2nd, 2010

Click here for the Clash of the Titans Trailer.

Zeus(Liam Neeson) along with his brothers Poseidon(Danny Huston) and Hades(Ralph Fiennes) rose up one day to overthrow their own creators, the Titans, and assumed leadership over all with Zeus ruling over the gods, Poseidon ruling over the seas and Hades, tricked by Zeus and Poseidon, ruling over the underworld in chaos and torment. Zeus then creates mankind so that their prayers and worships may forever strengthen the gods.

Many years later, a fisherman named Spyros(Pete Postlethwaite) finds a coffin floating in the water with a baby inside. Spyros adopts the baby and names him Perseus. 12 years later, Perseus(Sam Worthington) is fishing with his family when the witness soldiers from Argos destroying a massive statue of Zeus, declaring war on the gods. Hades then appears above the soldiers and releases harpies to destroy them and in his rage, Hades destroys Perseus' fishing boat, killing his whole family.

Perseus is found by Draco(Mads Mikkelsen), the leader of Argos' Praetorian Guard, who takes him to the city to meet with King Cephus(Vincent Regan) and Queen Cassiopeia(Polly Walker) who are having a feast celebrating their soldiers and the war on the gods. The king and queen compare themselves to gods and even declare their daughter, Princess Andromeda(Alexa Davalos) to be more beautiful than the goddess Aphrodite(Agyness Deyn). This angers the gods and Hades appears at the banquet and kills the queen. Hades also creates a vortex, sucking in and killing almost all of the returning soldiers as Perseus remains unharmed. Hades then reveals that Perseus is a demigod, the offspring of a god and a human, and threatens to release the Kraken, an enormous beast that was created to destroy the Titans, on the city of Argos unless Andromeda is sacrificed within 10 days.

King Cephus begs for the aid of Perseus to find a way to defeat the gods and the Kraken in order to save Argos. Driven by his hatred of the gods for killing his family, Perseus embarks on a quest, along with Argos' Praetorian Guard and Io(Gemma Arterton), a woman cursed with agelessness, to find the answers he needs and the means to defeat the Kraken before all is lost.

Clash of the Titans is a remake of the classic 1981 film of the same name with hopes of revamping the story and bringing in a fresh new audience. That seems to be the theme for a lot of recent movies these days and the director can either succeed or fail. With Clash of the Titans, director Louis Leterrier does either depending on what exactly you expected from this film.

There are some very notable differences from the first Clash to this one. Probably the most noticeable is the presentation. The original 1981 film featured Perseus(Harry Hamlin) as a young, fair skinned man with flowing black wavy hair. He was very clean and looked, for lack of a better term, like a pretty boy. Sam Worthington's Perseus, however, is rugged, dirty, vengeful and bald adding, for me, a greater sense of realism to the character. Another huge difference is the story. In the original, Perseus is tasked with completing a riddle to win Andromeda's hand in marriage and then the goddess Thetis declares that Andromeda be sacrificed to the Kraken or the city of Joppa will be destroyed by the creature. To put it side by side in the original, Perseus married Andromeda, this didn't happen in the remake. Thetis will send the Kraken to destroy Joppa if Andromeda isn't sacrificed within 30 days(1981). Hades will send the Kraken to destroy Argos if Andromeda isn't sacrificed within 10 days. So as you can see, the differences are not slight. However, the differences are good and they do give the film its own uniqueness.

So lets get into the components of the film. If you haven't guessed it by now, Clash of the Titans is an action film through and through. The film focuses on swordplay, big battles and dangerous creatures to satisfy the bloodlust most of us have brewing inside us. This is where the movie works its magic. We already know Sam Worthington can do action thanks to his performances in Terminator Salvation and Avatar and he definitely upped his game in this film. The action sequences were definitely intense. The sword choreography was awesome and reminisced films like 300 and Gladiator.

That being said, my one problem with the action/fighting scenes is that there wasn't enough and there certainly were not enough monsters. I expected Perseus to be fighting through hordes of enemies similar to 300 but on a lesser scale. But that wasn't the case. In the film, Perseus fought a total of 4 different monsters: giant scorpions, Medusa, a mutated and burnt king named Acrisius who was given superhuman powers by Hades and the Kraken. It was like playing a video game and skipping right to the boss battles. For me, it lessened the struggle Perseus had to face. I also was very disappointed with the Kraken sequences. The previews played the Kraken up big and his downfall was rather small.

The acting in the film was pretty good. I didn't think anybody was really terrible though Ralph Fiennes was really hard to hear and understand at some points. Other than that I though Worthington did a really good job and that all the supporting characters were very well done as well. Director Leterrier tried to incorporate humor into the film which is always good, but in an action flick you do not want to add to much and, at times, the humor tended to be a bit obnoxious and unnecessary.

The visual effects were all really good, obviously the creatures in the film do not exist but the team used to create them did a good job of making them look realistic and intimidating. The Kraken was by far the most visually stunning creature of the film, even though it deserved more screen time. Mount Olympus and the gods all had nice looks to them. They all had a tendency to glow, especially Zeus, which added to their mythology even more.

Overall, Clash of the Titans is a good flick to catch if you are in the mood for some good action, nice special effects, mythology, or just a good time. While there needed to be a bigger vairuety of monsters and some more action sequences, the ones that were in the film did a good job of holding your attention. Definitely one to see if this is your type of film but I would recommend seeing it in 2D. 3D is by far more expensive and the general consensus on the 3D in the film is that it isn't worth the extra cash. Overall I give Clash of the Titans 7.5 crazy Hades worshiping, Kraken loving zealots out of 10.