Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – DVD & Blu-ray combo review

click to purchase
click to purchase combo pack

When released to theatres earlier this year, PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME was not the franchise-starter it was intended to be, but as far as videogame-to-film transitions go, it is light years better than the current RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE. Thought it may not be the kind of film you eagerly anticipate viewing again and again, PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME makes a  nimble transition to home video, via Walt Disney Video’s 3-disc combo pack, which includes Blu-ray, DVD, and a digital copy. Not only that: the box includes a password to unlock an online streaming version of the film, which you can access at Disney.com/WatchMovies. Before getting into the details of what’s contained on this discs, we should note the significance of this.
Consumers have always felt that, once they purchase a film or a record album, it should be theirs to use as they see fit, even if that means copying versions for the desktop computer, the laptop, and/or some portable device. Meanwhile, the sellers wanted to maximize profits by finding ways of encouraging customers to buy separate versions for separate uses. But with the new 3-disc combo pack, Walt Disney Video is making THE PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME available in every format, with a single purchase – in effect, giving the audience what it wants
And in case you wondering why you would need multiple versions the pack’s slipcase contains inserts offering suggestions: the Blu-ray disc for the high-def television in the living room; the DVD for the kids room or the portable player in the car; the digital copy for the desktop computer and the smart phone or other portable device; the online streaming version for the portable laptop. Now, when you make your purchase, you may view the film however you want, in whatever manner is most convenient for you. (The only catch here is that Walt Disney Video wants this convenience to extend only to the family that purchase the pack; the insert warns: “Transfer, Sale, or Fradulent Use of Codes Prohibited.”)
As for the discs themselves: they come in a sturdy plastic case with proof-of-purchase coupons to redeem for points at DisneyMovieRewards.com. The plastic case is enclosed in a cardboard cover embossed with a glossy version of the promotional art, which gives the box the look of a nice collector’s item. Walt Disney Video clearly intends the three-disc combo pack to be the complete, definitive home video edition of PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME: the bonus features are deliberately parceled out between the DVD and the Blu-ray disc, so that you need to own both if you want to see everything.

BLU-RAY DETAILS

click to purchase
click to purchase blu-ray

The PRINCE OF PERSIA Blu-ray disc, like almost all these days, begins with trailers for other releases; unlike many discs, this one allows you to bypass the previews by clicking on the Menu button (instead of requiring you to chapter-stop through the trailers one by one). There are language options for English, French, and Spanish, in digital stereo, plus subtitles in the same languages (including English for the hearing impaired). The sound mix is clear and balanced (you can understand the dialogue without being blown away by the music and effects). The widescreen transfer captures the beauties of the location filming and the glossy special effects with rich colors and a sharp image.
The extras seem a bit light, until you dive into them: a deleted scene and an interactive featured called “The Sands of Time.” The former is a brief bad joke, wisely eliminated from the final cut, in which Garsiv, one of the king’s three sons, presents the heads of fallen enemies to his father as tribute; it’s amusing in a ghoulish way, but it’s hard to imagine even Garsiv being stupid enough to think his father would approve of this ugly intrusion into what is otherwise a lavishly beautiful celebration.
The “The Sands of Time” interactive feature turns out to be quite extensive. Basically, this is a throwback to the sort of thing that was in vogue on DVDs ten years ago, when branching technology first allowed viewers to stop the film when some symbol appeared on screen, so that they could access alternate sequences and/or behind-the-scenes material. In this case, the image is of the time-dagger, which allows you to “stop time” and rewind to see brief making-of segments. There are twenty rewind points, each offering one to three segments:

  • REWIND ONE: Jerry Bruckheimer Introduction; Filing in Morocco; Moroccan Marchers
  • REWIND TWO: Next Action Hero; Functional Fitness; Walking Up Walls
  • REWIND THREE: Designing Persia; Epic Dive Breakdown
  • REWIND FOUR: A New Kind of Princess; Making a Princess
  • REWIND FIVE: Alumet from the Ground Up; Layers of an Ancient City
  • REWIND SIX: Parkour – Defying Gravity; Parkour Legend David Belle
  • REWIND SEVEN: The Look of Rewinding Time
  • REWIND EIGHT: From Game to Film; The Dagger of Time; Moroccan Artisans
  • REWIND NINE: Behold the Might Ostrich; Ostrich Jockey Tryouts; Moe the Ostrich
  • REWIND TEN: Penny Rose – Master Costumer; Snake Dude
  • REWIND ELEVEN: Avrat Bazaar Fight; Rock the Casbah; How to Collapse a Tent
  • REWIND TWELVE: Hassassins; Deadly Arts; Animal Lair
  • REWIND THIRTEEN: It was Hot, Hot Hot; Ostrich Love
  • REWIND FOURTEEN: Filming in the Atlas Mountains
  • REWIND FIFTEEN: Making of an Epic Battle; The Whip Fight
  • REWIND SIXTEEN: A Knife Thrower’s Shoot-Out; Too Close for Comfort
  • REWIND SEVENTEEN: Filming at Pinewood Studios; Time Lapse of Pinewood Sets
  • REWIND EIGHTEEN: Making Sand from Scratch
  • REWIND NINETEEN: The Sands of Time; Memories of Time
  • REWIND TWENTY: Jerry Bruckheimer’s Photo Montage

These featurettes (which run approximately one to five minutes) are a mixture of short promotional videos (some of which have, such as “Hassassins,” have been available on YouTube for awhile), some B-roll type behind-the-scenes footage, and some special effects pre-viz shots and/or time-lapse photography presented without narration or explanation. The sheer volume is exhausting, giving the impression that they probably could have been condensed into a good making-of documentary. Spread out over the course of the film, they provide interesting glimpses of what went on behind the scenes, but they sometimes skimp on details, suggesting that they were designed with the casual viewer in mind, not the cinefantastique aficionado who wants to know everything.
Some of the segments are not quite as scene-specific as one would like and would probably have been better utilized as stand-alone bonus features or even easter eggs, instead of being inserted at specific points in the film. Fortunately, once you have activated the Sands of Time feature, you can go to the Index and access all the rewind points there, without sitting through the entire film again.

DVD DETAILS

click to purchase dvd
click to purchase dvd

The DVD treatment of PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME is about what you would expect from the format. There are audio and subtitles options for English, French, and Spanish. The standard-def transfer is enhanced for widescreen televisions with very good results; even if it does not match the clarity of the high-def transfer, it looks great when enhanced on a Blu-ray player. On a smaller television screen or a portable player, the difference in quality would be eclipsed.
There are two bonus features not on the Blu-ray disc. The first features some actors from the Disney Channel performing allegedly comic antics to promote the Blu-ray format; unfortunately, the continue well past the point when they have made their point about the superiority of Blu-ray over DVD. Disney is definitely pushing the format: the PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME combo pack includes an insert with instructions on how to obtain a discount coupon to upgrade your existing Disney DVDs for new Blu-ray discs.
For those purchasing the three-disc combo pack, the second bonus feature is of more interest: the behind-the-scenes featurette “An Unseen World: Making Prince of Persia.” Running over fifteen minutes, this short subject takes the best footage spread throughout the Blu-ray’s “Sands of Time” rewind feature, and fashions it into a concise mini-documentary that should appeal to viewers who do not wish to wade through over forty individual segments one by one.

CONCLUSION

Although PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME is not a great film, its presentation on home video is superlative. The lack of an audio commentary is unfortunate, but the “Sands of Time” interactive feature offers much of the information that would have been included in a commentary. More important, the three-disc combo pack, with digital copy and online streaming option, should become the standard for offering movies to consumers, allowing them a convenient and satisfying range of options to watch the film.
[serialposts]

Laserblast, September 14: Prince of Persia, Fringe, The Twilight Zone

Also on Home Video this week: THE BLACK CAULDRON, STARCRASH, RIFFTRAX, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, LORD OF THE RINGS, CARRIE, JACOB’S LADDER

click to purchase
click to purchase

A wide variety of horror, fantasy, and science fiction titles arrive in stores on Tuesday, September 14: something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blu… (ray, that is). Walt Disney Video offers PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME in three formats: DVD, Blu-ray, and a 3-disc combo back with both formats, plus a digital copy. The bonus features are parceled out in a way that makes the latter the only complete edition: the DVD includes the behind-the-scenes featurette “An Unseen World: Making Prince of Persia”; the Blu-ray contains the featurette and a deleted scene, “The Banquet: Garsiv Presents Heads”; and the combo pack includes all of the DVD and Blu-ray features, plus “CineEsplore: The Sands of Time,” interactive feature that allows you to “take control of the dagger and use it to unlock secrets behind your favorite scenes! Turn back time and uncover over 40 spellbinding segments – including ‘Walking Up Walls,’ ‘Filming in Morocco,’ and ‘Ostrich Jockey Tryouts’.'”
The only other new title arriving this week is FRINGE: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON, which shows up on DVD and Blu-ray. Bonus features include: four audio commentaries; The Mythology of Fringe; sidebar analysis on six episodes; In the Lab with John Noble and Rob Smith; a gag reel; unaired scenes; and “The Unearthed Episode,” starring Kirk Acevedo as Charlie.
On the 50th anniversary of its first appearance on network airwaves, Rod Serling’s classic television show gets the Blu-ray treatment with THE TWILIGHT ZONE: SEASON ONE. The multi-disc set will be packed with extras: audio commentaries from surviving cast members (Earl Holliman, Martin Landau, Rod Taylor, Kevin McCarthy, etc); vintage audio recollections with Burgess Meredtih, Anne Francis, Richard Matheson, and more; the unaired pilot version of “Where is Everybody?” Billed as new for this edition are audio commentaries with film historians and filmmakers (Marc Scott Zicree, Gary Gerani, director Ted Post, etc); a never-before released pilot “The Tiem Element,” in high-def; a TALES OF TOMORROW episode titled “What You Need” (which was also a TWILIGHT ZONE episode); a vintage audio interview with director of photograph George T. Clemens; 13 radio dramas; and 34 isolated music scores by Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith, and others.
Other oldies coming out on Blu-ray and/or special edition DVDs include the following:

  • Walt Disney’s THE BLACK CAULDRON gets a 25 Anniversary Special Edition DVD release. Only two new extras have been added that were not on the previous DVD: an deleted scene and a game.
  • CARRIE, the 1976 horror hit directed by Brian DePalma and based on Stephen King’s first novel, arrives in a new DVD-Blu-ray combo pack.
  • JACOB’S LADDER gets another DVD re-issue.
  • THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS and THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING re-appear on Blu-ray
  • THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985) is resurrected in a Collector’s Edition. There is a two-disc DVD and a two-disc combo pack with Blu-ray and DVD.
  • STARCRASH, the Italian, 1979 STAR WARS rip-off starring Caroline Munro and Marjoe Gortner, arrives on Blu-ray and DVD as part of the Roger Corman Cult Classics line.

And if you’re looking for laughs, RiffTrax offers two DVD collections of short subjects: RIFFTRAX: SHORTS-A-POPPIN’ and RIFFTRAX: PLAYS WITH THEIR SHORTS.
[serialposts]

Prince of Persia: Cinefantastique Podcast 1:16

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)In the sixteenth episode of Cinefantastique’s weekly Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction Podcast, Dan Persons, Lawrence French, and Steve Biodrowski sift through the Sands of Time as they search PRINCE OF PERSIA for hidden political metaphors and/or weapons of mass destruction. The big screen film version of the popular video game stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina, and Gemma Arterton – but, strangely enough, no Persians. Also in this episode: a fond farewell to Dennis Hopper; a preview of the WOLF MAN unrated director’s cut DVD; and the usual news and previews.


[serialposts]

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)Viewed from the Olympian heights of Cinefantastique – the Online Magazine with a Sense of Wonder, which maintains a reputation for demanding dilettantism, even outright pretension, in its assessment horror, fantasy, and science fiction films – PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME seems virtually made to be derided.  Its package of elements is less a brightly wrapped present than a glowing new security gadget, flashing multiple warning lights: It’s another big-budget, CGI-heavy action-fantasy flick, based on a video game no less. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, who hardly seems cut out for action-hero theatrics. It’s directed by Mike Newell, who has two great movies to his credit (ENCHANTED APRIL and FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL) but has shown little sense of wonder when working on fantasy material (his work on HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE was anonymous at best). And it’s produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who gave us the increasingly insane PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN sequels and the unwatchable G-FORCE. With all this stacked against it, one may understandably wonder: What could possible go right? The answer, surprisingly, is: More than you would expect.
Make no mistake: almost everything that you would expect to be wrong with PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME is, in fact, wrong. It takes that Hollywood generic approach to costume epics, in which British accents (including one from Gyllenhaal) are used to suggest a past time and place, regardless of the actual setting. Despite its Middle Eastern setting, the cast is filled with fair-skinned American and English actors, who are obviously not Persian. The running time is overloaded with action scenes thrown in for their own sake. The screenplay  features a love-hate relationship between the male and female leads that grows wearisome in its effort to recreate the chemistry of Princess Leia and Han Solo. And the dialogue is bogged down with tedious exposition.
And yet somehow it works more often than not. How?
Well, it’s all presented as an enjoyable lark, a light-hearted popcorn flick that makes few demands on the audience and expects few in return. The goofiness of the things you might hold against the film actually becomes part of the fun, like little signposts indicating not to take the proceedings seriously. As often as not, PRINCE OF PERSIA‘s mistakes are clouds with silver linings. [WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW]

L to r: Steve Toussaint, Gemma Arterton, Alfred Molina. Guess which one dies?
L to r: Steve Toussaint, Gemma Arterton, Alfred Molina. Guess which one dies?

For example, when we see the lone prominent black character, the knife-throwing Seso (Steve Toussaint) give up his life so that his master and the other white heroes can succeed in their mission, it’s a tired, racist cliche as old as silent cinema – you may flinch when you realize the film is going to roast this old chestnut again, but when it’s over, you have to give the sequence an exemption, because in its own cornball, melodramatic way, it’s a memorably good moment that gives a supporting character a chance to steal the show, and you’re sorry to see him go.
Likewise, the script’s uncertainty about what to do with Princess Tamina (CLASH OF THE TITAN’s Gemma Arterton) during the action set pieces is actually a stroke of good fortune.  She is not allowed to sit on the sidelines like a damsel in distress, but she doesn’t really do anything, either. Sure, she is always reaching for a sword, but we see little evidence that she can actually handle one. In this day and age, the reluctance to morph her from pampered princess into the obligatory warrior-heroine  feels almost as if it’s preserving the character’s integrity. (And she does finally get a good moment when she sneaks up behind a villain with a pet snake, grabbing the serpent from behind and plunging its fangs into its master’s face! Way to go, girl!)

POLITICAL SUBVERSION?

PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME doesn’t use its popcorn pedigree as an excuse to be deliberately arch or ironic, nor is it completely empty-headed. It’s a confection but not a completely flimsy one; its attempts to add a little substance to the souffle – which should have been disastrous – actually ground the film in – if not a sense of believability, then at least a sense that we should invest enough to care about what’s happening for a couple hours instead of just hurling candy wrappers at the screen and waiting for the next fight scene.
On top of that there is a little more – just enough – to engage our interest on something more than a video game level. In fact, PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME even dares to question the underlying assumptions of the video game aesthetic, in which action is everything, suggesting that being heroic in battle is not always enough.This last element is not necessarily the most insightful stance ever taken in a feature film, but hey, you take what you can get, especially when it arrives in the form of a thinly veiled attack on Bush’s Iraq adventure.
After a brief prologue showing how Dastan, a young orphan, was adopted into the royal family, we flash-forward a couple decades to see the adult Dastan (Gyllenhaal), aiding his brothers in a battle against the holy city of Alumet – against the previously expressed order of their father, who is back home, tending the Persian kingdom. The motivation for this attack is the discovery that Alumet is supplying arms to Persia’s enemies. Unbeknownst to his older brothers, Dastan mounts a separate raid that breaches the walls of the heavily fortified city, leading to victory.
So far, so dull – or so it seems. PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME has us deep in familiar territory: we’re supposed to think the warfare is fun because our guys win, and we’re supposed to think  Dastan is cool because he came up from the streets and he does things his own way – even though he doesn’t follow the rules, we expect he will be rewarded for his successful results. The first surprise comes when his adoptive father King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup) praises Dastan for being a good soldier but then points out that a truly great soldier would have prevented the unnecessary battle in the first place, even if it meant defying his superior.
What? You mean there’s more to war than winning? Maybe even there are times when we should rely on discretion rather than force? What kind of commie, defeatist talk is this, anyway?
Well, it turns out that the accusations against Alumet were based on faulty intelligence; even worse, the intelligence was not merely faulty but  deliberately fabricated in order to fool otherwise well-meaning people into opting for a war that was not necessary. In a delicious dig that couldn’t be more obvious if PRINCE OF PERSIA had a flashing sign pointing at it, the post-battle focus becomes an off-screen search for the alleged weapons (as in, “Weapons of Mass Destruction”) that were the casus belli for the battle. (That this plot element has not ignited a firestorm of controversy from right-wing pundits is little short of miraculous, but hey, that’s why popular entertainment is a great medium for indoctrinating the masses – right, comrade?)

DARING ESCAPES AND ANTI-TAX RHETORIC

Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton
Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton

In any case, now that the filmmakers have had their little joke at the expense of the previous White House administration, it’s on with the story, which is frankly a bit weighted down with its set-up. After being framed for murder, Prince Dastan escapes, reluctantly taking Alumet’s Princess Tamina with him as he seeks to clear his name. Of course she hates him because he helped sack her city, but they need each other – at least until they don’t. This provides opportunities for the screenplay to indulge in the sort of monotonous back-stabbing twists that muddled the Bruckheimer’s PIRATES sequels. Yawn.
The Dastan-Tamina relationship is hardly helped by PRINCE OF PERSIA‘s screenplay, which seems unsure whether to portray her as she sees herself (noble and pure) or as Dastan initially sees her (spoiled and pampered). Consequently, she emerges as not much of anything in particular. But this hardly matters, as we are safely in the land of make believe, where princess and princesses are familiar archetypes. We know we are supposed to like them, and we know they will end up liking each other, even if they bicker along the way. All that’s required is that the actors look good going through their paces and let us in on the fun they they are having while playing dress-up. Arterton struggles to imbue the character with some gravitas, and she at least manages to look like someone who should be taken seriously – not just a pretty face -even if the script offers little to support this appearance. Arterton and Gyllenhaal may not light up the screen together, but they seem to be having fun, without winking at the audience of camping it up.
Fortunately, Alfred Molina shows up as a tax-hating and rather shady entrepreneur, who sounds like a mouth-piece for anti-government Tea Bagger sentiments (gotta give credit to the film for working both sides of the aisle). Although Molina at first seems too good to be wasting his time in this sort of nonsense, he’s actually good, and the film sells his character to us in such a way that even when betrays Dastan, we know it’s all going to work out in the end – we just like him too much for him to remain a villain.
This is a key part of what makes PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME succeed in spite of everything stacked against it: it gets us to like its characters, even some who seem initially antagonistic. Instead of hating or dismissing them and tuning out, you want to see them do the right thing, and as predictable as the change-of-heart scenes may be, as much as your cynical inner self may recoil from these moments, they do indeed work.
Buoyed by this mid-film boost, the rest of PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME coasts along at a fairly painless clip, at least until the film gets around to explaining what the plot’s about. You see, Tamina is the keeper of a sacred dagger that can turn back time as long as the sand within its glass handle runs out (i.e., about a minute). Somebody wants to get their hands on that dagger and take it back to the source of the sands, in order to reset history years back, and…
Oh well, I intend to be kinder to you than the film is to is audience, which just about nods off during the exposition regarding the sands of time and how the  dagger came to exist and what the catastrophic consequences will be if the villain is allowed to go through with his nefarious plan. No one really cares, yet at least one of the credited screenwriters seems to have felt the need to work overtime justifying his paycheck, sending viewers into Lotus-land. Apparently, no one realized that the dagger is just a plot device – a huge MacGuffin – and all we care about is that it gives the characters an excuse to dodge arrows, leap off buildings, and outwit the villain, whatever his ultimate goal may be.
Ben Kingsley as Nizam
Ben Kingsley as Nizam

Said villain turns out to be Nizam, played by Ben Kingsley. Revealing this is hardly a spoiler, since for mysterious reasons of their own, the studio gives this away in PRINCE OF PERSIA‘s theatrical trailer, undermining Kingsley’s achievement, which was convincing you of his sincerity until the moment when Dastan begins to suspect his duplicity, at which point some subtle little light goes off in Kingsley’s eyes, just enough to confirm your suspicion. It’s an amazing acting moment because it’s hard to see exactly what has changed in the man’s face, and yet it’s there, clear as the bright desert sun without anything obvious to explain why we haven’t seen it all along. It’s nice to see a fantasy film villain who avoids scenery chewing; Kingsley seems to be taking it all seriously, but not too seriously – he never risks overstepping into campy melodrama.
As for Gyllenhaal, his boyish charm is really his meal ticket here. Not much is demanded of him, but for someone who seemed the least likely heir to the Errol Flynn’s and Douglass Fairbanks’s, he acquits himself quite well; even if you go in dead set against the idea of him as an action hero, you have to laugh along with him and enjoy the ride. In a way, it’s a bit like watching your best friend in the high school play: you know he’s not Hamlet, but you want to see him do well, and you enjoy watching him anyway.
And ultimately, the thrill ride is what this film promised – a promise so often unfulfilled – or fulfilled only at the cost of story-telling and characterization – that one has come to regard it with innate suspicion. When a film offers nothing but fun entertainment, “fun” and “entertainment” become almost the last things expected.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Almost in spite of itself  PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME earns audience goodwill, and that buys a lot of slack to get away with gambits that would otherwise fail miserably. The ending features what could have registered as ultra-lame contrivance, based around one of the worst science-fiction-fantasy cliches: turning back the clock to set things right. Yet unlike the ending of, say, SUPERMAN (1978), this sequence feels justified, partly because the entire plot is built around the time-twisting powers of the mystical dagger but mostly because the film has earned its right to hit the reset button. Consequently, instead of groaning in derision, you may be surprised to find yourself sighing in satisfied relief.
PRINCE OF PERSIA achieves its modest goal – supplying the derring-do that one expects from a glossy action-adventure – without succumbing to the pitfalls of the soulless Hollywood manufacturing process. What’s surprising is that, when the film makes the obligatory attempts at generating some genuine feeling, it actually works better than when it’s just running, jumping, and defying death at all turns. The themes are  basic stuff about loyalty, bonds of brotherhood, and doing the right thing instead of mindlessly following orders; fortunately, the cast sells it with a pleasing semblance of sincerity.
This helps redeem the more unpleasant elements of PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME, which occasionally s border on misogynistic. Our hero’s noble brother at one point order Dastan to kill Tamina if she refuses to join Persia and Alumet through marriage. Dastan himself threatens to break Tamina’s arm at one point; at another he sells her into slavery to get himself out of a bad situation. These mismanaged moments turn out to be attempts to present characters who do not live up to21st century standards of behavior; these people are not automatically chivalrous or merciful toward their defeated enemies, but throughout the film we see glimpses of them evolving; they’re not perfect, but they are trying to be better. And by the end, they succeed.
Making improvements requires an admission that there is room for improvement. Too often movie heroes are a bit smug in their own self-satisfaction and deep conviction in the rightness of their cause. For what could have been a dumb summer movie to come out in favor of self-reflection and self-improvement, instead of the mindless jingo-ism of war and victory – my country, right or wrong – deserves at least a small nod of respect.
Prince of Persia The Sands of Time (2010)
PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME (2010). Directed by Mike Newell. Written by Boaz Yakin and Doug Miro & Carlo Bernard, screen story by Jordan Mchner, based on his video game series. Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, Alfred MOlina, Steve Toussaint, Toby Kebbell, Richard Coyle, Ronadl Pickup, Reece Ritchie, Gisli Orn Garoarsson.
[serialposts]