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Studio:Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment

Director:Mike Newell

Cast: Gemma Arterton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley

Amazon.co.uk Review

Jake Gyllenhaal's doe eyes and bulging biceps will make some hearts flutter in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Dastan (Gyllenhaal), adopted prince of the Persian empire, must flee into the desert when accused of murdering his royal father--but a glass-handled dagger he found as loot from a captured city turns out to hold powerful time-manipulating magic. Not only is he pursued by his vengeful brothers, his scheming uncle (Ben Kingsley, Sexy Beast), and a strange cabal of assassins, but a princess/priestess named Tamina (Gemma Arterton, Quantum of Solace) wants the dagger back and will kill Dastan if she has to. Prince of Persia wants to be a rollicking adventure along the lines of Pirates of the Caribbean. Unfortunately, it's hampered by clumsy dialogue and hard-to-follow action sequences, with choppy editing that wrecks the flow of the parkour-inspired stunts. But the production design is extravagant and every time Alfred Molina (Spiderman 2) appears as a greedy sheik the movie gets a delightful jolt of energy. Gyllenhaal doesn't have much to work with--Dastan is a fairly generic hero--and whoever designed his hair should have been fired on the first day, but his lazy charm comes through and carries him through the movie. --Bret Fetzer

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- prince of persia movie 2010

Outstanding movie on it's own and even more fun to those who remmember playing PoP back in the days of 2D platforms plus the 2008 cool stylized version for PS3! Some of the scenes really make you feel like you're back playing but loads more fun because you're not about to die if you don't time a butto just right! hehe!
I absolutely loved the choice of the cast except for the vilain! I've seen his face too many times as a vilain so the mistery was spoiled to begin with. Other than that, the story kept taking unexpected turns wich was really refreshing in this movie genre and it was nonstop action, not one moment you could stop and pay attention to the popcorn. I loved the soundtrack, the effects, the humour, the side characters and especially the teasing nasty jokes between the 2 main characters.

I'll go watch a movie a second time to check if I see any flaws but no matter how many I find, this is a serious must to those who enjoy movies in the genre of the first Pirates of the Caribbean.

- Sand in your shoes

Prince of Persia: The Sands of time is loosely based around the video game series of the same name, using characters and locales from the games and bringing them to the big screen. Jake Gyllenhaal (Jarhead) plays Dastan, a vagabond prince who was plucked from the streets by the King for his spirit and athleticism and adopted into the royal family. 15 years later Dastan fights in the Persian army alongside his adopted brothers Garsiv (Toby Kebbell - Rocknrolla) and Tus (Richard Coyle - Jeff from Coupling). After receiving word that the ancient city of Alamut is supplying weapons to Persia's enemies, they besiege & conquer the city, where they find the lovely Princess Tamina (Gemma Aterton - Quantum of Solace) who guards a weapon that grants the bearer time-shifting abilities. All is not as it seems as Dastan soon realises that someone within his trust has ulterior motives for invading Alamut and wants the dagger for themselves...

The film is beautifully shot and features some breathtaking locales, credit to Mike Newell here. There are multiple nods to the acrobatics of the game, even panning around Gyllenhaal before jumps in the third person aspect made so familiar by the games. Ben Kingsley plays Dastan's uncle and is a real asset to the production with his ambiguous mannerisms, whilst Alfred Molina (Dr Octopus - Spider-Man 2) plays a brilliant, tax-dodging & eccentric bazaar-owner who injects some much-needed humour into the proceedings and carries every scene he is in.

The plot is rather linear and predictable but the acting is solid and keeps you enthralled, if you were expecting lots of time-jumping and rewinding like the games then you will be sorely disappointed as Dastan uses the vast majority of the sands of time figuring out how to use the sands of time, which is a bit of a waste of cinematic potential if you ask me but that's the direction they went with. I couldn't figure out why both of the leads have Kensington-English accents, despite Gyllenhall being American and both of them playing middle-eastern royalty; nonetheless Gyllenhaal's English accent is convincing enough.

In conclusion, this is a must-see for fans of the game, but the whole film feels a bit ham-fisted as it jumps seemingly randomly between threads of the story and the dialogue just feels a bit contrived. The ending is contradictory to earlier information given in the film and doesn't make an awful lot of sense. Nonetheless, I would recommend this for a decent watch but don't question the plot too much as you are likely to get annoyed at the paradoxes!!

This version has both the Blu-Ray version of the film and the DVD version.