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Prince of Persia review


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Prince Of Persia

Walt Disney

PG 13 116 min

 

Well gang it’s been a long week.

Memorial Day on the rock, struggling to get the new CD out and topped off with SEX IN THE CITY 2… What could be worse? Oh yeah. Now I remember. The other new blockbuster this week is PRINCE OF PERSIA. Not only is it based on a video game (which usually spells trouble) but based on a really crappy video game.

So I wasn’t looking forward to burning a chunk of life on it, no matter how dedicated I am.

Heh heh.

Anyway, dear friends I have to say my misgivings were misplaced. Now I’ll admit I don’t expect to see this one in the action adventure hall of fame but it’s at least enough fun to kill a couple hours. There’s not a lot to be said, however, about a movie that’s just not bad so I hope I’m not damning it with faint praise.

One thing is that since the videogame itself is so vapid one need not try to stay too close to the original concept. Yes, the hero jumps a lot. Got it.

And the storyline isn’t all that complicated and barely makes sense if you look beyond the rudimentary good guy bad guy treachery.

There is really a prince of Persia (Jake Gwyllenhaal) here. He’s an orphan who was adopted by the king due to his impressive bravery and presumably his jumping around skills.

I won’t spoil anything for you but let me say there’s a lot of dirty dealing among those in line for the throne and it involves a magic dagger and a hot young queen.

The story really is preposterous but why worry about that? Just tell yourself it makes sense and move on to the next action sequence.

Now the plus side is that even though the action is almost non stop it rarely goes into overload. The fight and action scenes are well choreographed and fairly exciting. And the queen/love interest (Gemma Arterton) is pretty darn cute.

Gwyllenhaal, while not bad in the role never really seems all that Persian or even princely. The rest of the cast is better with Ben Kingsley as a sinister uncle and Alfred Molina as the crook with a heart of gold.

It’s a lot better than it could have been in less capable hands than the pros at Disney, and for sure Persia was a lot cooler before the Ayatollah.

 

B-

 

WSS

 

Email westsidesteve@aol.com

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