(Does this sunless tanning lotion make me look Persian? Tell me the truth...)
CAST: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina, Richard Coyle, Toby Kebbell, Ronald Pickup.
DIRECTOR: Mike Newell. Yes. Mike Newell. The director of ENCHANTED APRIL and FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL. Don't worry - you are not drunk. Or high.
WARNING: SPOILERS and many faux Persians up ahead...
Something odd happens at about the halfway mark of PRINCE OF PERSIA, the ill-conceived attempt to duplicate the video-game-to-silver-screen success of PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN: You realize the movie is going absolutely nowhere. Oh, it sure thinks it is, and so does its game cast. But, trust me, it's just spinning its wheels in the sand. Too bad, because it gets off to a semi-promising start.
At its core, PRINCE OF PERSIA is very much a chase film. You know, the kind Hitchcock did so well: various factions running after - and killing each other over - a "Macguffin." No, this is not something you can purchase at McDonald's before 10:30 AM. It means the mysterious "something" that drives the plot of a thriller. It can be suitcase full of money, or a vial of rare plutonium, or even a bootleg of SLIVER with it's original ending intact - as long as the characters are willing to throw each other under the bus to get at it.
In PRINCE OF PERSIA, the Macguffin is a dagger with a hollow glass handle that can hold the magical sands of time. Which can propel the handler into the past, where he/she can use knowledge from the future - to change future. Kind of like me inventing post-its and retiring at 24. Needless to say, you can see how this MacGuffin dagger would be tempting to just about anyone.
PRINCE OF PERSIA opens with a prologue showing young Dastan, our impoverished and scrappy hero, winning the love and admiration of the King of Persia when he attacks of one of the King's henchmen with an orange for abusing some of the poor folk. For this act of rebellion and insolence that most kings would have rewarded with, oh I don't know, a date with a guillotine, the King of Persia adopts Dastan as a son, praising his "courage." As opposed to writing this off as typical poor-brat behavior. Hell, if that's really all it would've taken to be adopted by a billionaire, I'd have pitched entire groves of oranges at their bodyguards while growing up.
Anyway, young orange-throwing Dastan grows up to be not-so-bright-but-good-hearted adult Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal, looking very, very lost). Dastan's two older adoptive brothers are important military figures and are intent on invading some nearby walled city because of rumors that they have WMDs. Seriously. Dastan secretly infiltrates the city and manages to take the city with a minimum of bloodshed. Nevertheless, he is still treated with disgust by local hottie, Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton, fairly drowning under a sea of bronzer, obviously borrowed from her QUANTUM OF SOLACE co-star Olga Kurylenko, who basically doused herself in the stuff to pass as Bolivian). Tamina only becomes "interested" in Dastan when he picks up the MacGuffin dagger, clearly thinking it's a Bong. Obviously, Princess Tamina knows more than she's telling. (NOTE: Why are all heroines in action movies always knowing more than they're telling? For once, I want one who is dumber than she looks. Wouldn't that be a novel concept?).
Anyhow, Dastan and his bros' celebration of conquering WMD City is cut brutally short when King Pops tries on a ceremonial robe presented to him by Dastan. Only problem is the robe is the textile version of an acid bath, and King Pops melts right in front of his sons, his brother Nazid (Ben Kingsley - guess who the villain is? No, guess again) and the kickin' house party they've assembled. "Whhhhhhyyyyy????" KP pleads with Dastan as his face crumbles like an Oreo in a glass of milk. Only not as appetizing. So not.
Long story short, PRINCE OF PERSIA turns into a Hitchcockian man-on-the run movie, with Dastan and Tamina hightailing it out into the desert and basically turning into Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll, e.g., bickering about. every. single. goddamn. thing. Pssssst, guys, since you dipshits are fugitives in the middle of the desert, perhaps you could consider growing up and working together. Oh, right... that's not an approved way to create sexual tension, whereas sniping at each other every three seconds apparently is. Of course, if they actually grew up and cooperated, the movie would be over in 14 seconds.
This is pretty much the middle part of the movie: Tamina sniping at Dastan. Dastan threatening to bitch slap her. Tamina responding, "Bring it, Prince Adopted. Ooooh, you gonna cry?" Anyway, after about seven years of this tedious "chemistry," Nazid realizes he needs to put in his villain dues, yawns, and leaves his Harem to break up the overly-bronzed lovebirds.
This all leads to an incomprehensible battle for the MacGuffin dagger in, I guess, the bowels of the earth. It certainly looks like the bowels of something. Like this movie. Meow. Anyhow, at one point, Tamina plunges to her death, meriting a standing ovation from the audience due to the fact that we no longer have to (1) listen to her "argue-cute" with Prince Adopted, or (2)wonder if her pores are choking underneath all that bronzer, or (3) if Gemma Arterton is doomed to playing spunky but ill-fated sidekicks for the rest of her natural life (also see CLASH OF THE TITANS and QUANTUM OF SOLACE).
Unfortunately, having the writers actually kill her off is too much to ask for. Nope, Prince Adopted takes the dagger and uses it to travel back in time to a point where (A) King Pops is still alive and un-melted, and (B) Princess Tamina is still alive and in a good mood (likely because she still hasn't met Dastan), and (C) the audience still harbored a shred of hope that this movie wouldn't suck.
Using his knowledge of things to come, Prince Adop- er, Dastan, exposes his Uncle Nazid as the bad guy, to which everyone appears genuinely shocked. Please. Like anyone with a mustache like that has nothing but good thoughts racing through his head. Right. At any rate, it comes as no surprise that King Pops is saved, Uncle Nazid is fucked (not literally - at least not until he makes into that Persian prison, which might as well be Turkish), and Tamina has no idea what a developmentally-arrested knucklehead Dastan really is. But, trust me, she will. And when she does, she's gonna need that MacGuffin dagger to travel back in time to kill Dastan's real dad before he gets a chance to knock up Prince Adopted's real mom. Good luck with that, T....
BUT, SERIOUSLY: I had hopes that PRINCE OF PERSIA would be great, or at least good. To say I was disappointed would be like saying that a porn star sometimes earns her money on her back. Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton do their best, but they're contending with a script that feels like it was assembled by a machine. About the only thing that was compelling about this flick was the sultry cinematography. Now, if only the human and narrative elements could have matched the visuals, we might have had a summer tentpole series to give Johnny Depp a run for his money. Alas....
And, seriously.... Mike Newell? Was he supposed to turn this into FOUR PERSIANS AND A DAGGER? Or ENCHANTED BRONZER?
