Between a prince and a pauper

At first glance, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time seems like a film doomed to fail. With Jake Gyllenhaal starring as Dastan, the Prince of Persia, the film held little promise. Fortunately, the unlikely casting choice turned out to be all right.

Acting childish, witty and sometimes obnoxious, Gyllenhaal proved to be a decent casting for the young Prince Dastan. He even looked the part with his tanned physique, body pulsing with muscles, shoulder-length hair and just a touch of eye makeup.

A film is more than its protagonist though, and there were a few principal problems with Prince of Persia’s plot that cannot be overlooked. First of all, the idea of an orphan who lives in the slums getting adopted by a king is fairly unbelievable. Sure, it’s a fantasy film, but still.

Because of his early poor upbringing, we’re supposed to look at Dastan like he knows better than his brothers. When his uncle claims that a holy city nearby is involved in creating weapons for Persia’s enemy, Dastan’s brothers—first-born and in line for the throne, Tus, and Garsiv—suggests they invade and occupy. Dastan, however, doesn’t buy it, but he goes along with the plan anyway, even disobeying his brother’s orders and doing a side attack to help minimize the death on both sides.

What follows is major drama involving the ruler of the city they’ve invaded, Princess Tamina, the King of Persia (he is poisoned by a cloak given to Dastan to bestow upon him) and a beautiful dagger unlike anything anyone has seen.

In short, the Gods gave Tamina the dagger—which, when filled with the sand enclosed deep within the holy city, can control time instead of destroying all of mankind, so long as she protects it.

Turns out that she’s not the only one that knows of the dagger. When it is found out that Dastan has come upon it, Nizam, the King’s brother (who, let’s be honest, we know is the bad guy from the beginning—he’s bald and all the villains in these period pieces lack hair) frames him for his father’s murder in order to get the dagger for himself.

Like all villains, he wants to rule the world, and going back in time and altering history to make him the King of Persia is his method.

That’s the gist of the plot. It plays out fairly straightforward and there are very few places that are confusing, but the ending seems far too easy. Everything ends up wrapped in perfect package, with Dastan surfacing as a hero.

While this ending is understandable—it is a Disney movie, after all—it just seems too neat and tidy. The Princess even falls for him practically on the spot when he returns the dagger to her, even though she has no recollection of the drama that she and Dastan went through earlier in the film.

This is a minor issue in the end though. Even the surplus of action sequences doesn’t hurt the film. While there is action in every scene, it never seems like too much. It was clear that a lot of it was taken directly from the video game, considering the style of the flips and jumps—it was all very Pirates of the Caribbean-esque.

The humor was also reminiscent of Pirates. There were silly characters added purely to gain a few laughs and it worked, regardless of how dorky the jokes were. Some of the best scenes in the film are those with Sheik Amar, an ostrich-racer and entrepreneur, a man who serves the plot only to add some comic relief.

With the cute jokes, decent cast and understandable storyline, Prince of Persia is surprisingly fun to watch. While it’s certainly not an outstanding work of cinematography, it is entertaining. If you’re looking for an action film without the blood and gore, this is the one to see.