Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (movie) review

So last night I got to see Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the Jerry Bruckheimer film loosely based on the 2003 video game of the same name. Now I have to say, I wasn't very sure how this movie was going to turn out. I am a big fan of the Prince of Persia video games (I own all four games in the "Sands of Time" series, including the newly-released "Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands"), and I've always felt that they were fantastic games but I never really saw them working all that well as a movie. The games, for the most part, stick to a pretty straight formula: do some crazy, gravity-defying acrobatics to get from point A to point B, solve a "push the block, pull the lever" puzzle, fight a huge hoard of bad guys, rinse and repeat. The plots of the games are engaging and interesting (especially the first one on which this movie is based), but for the bulk of the game the plot serves no real purpose but to give you a reason to go from point A to point B, keeping most of the interesting plotting at the beginning and end of the game. While this type of plot structure works great for a video game, where the focus is more on the gameplay itself, it doesn't necessarily translate all that well into a movie.

Luckily, Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Director Mike Newell realized this, and decided that it was better off to use the video game series as more of an inspiration than trying to retell their story exactly. While there are certain elements taken directly from the game (most notably the Dagger of Time), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time features an all new plot written specifically for the movie. While the movie doesn't break new cinematic ground by any stretch of the imagination, it definitely takes its inspiration from the best, and proves itself to be a very entertaining classic example of a summer popcorn flick.

"Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" takes place in 6th century Persia (which you may remember from your history books as being filled with white people with British accents who have developed technologies such as crossbows and hand grenades). The movie tells the story of Dastan (Jake Gyllenhall), a street orphan who was adopted by the good-hearted king of Persia when he witnessed him do a good deed for another boy in the streets one day. Though Dastan has no royal blood in him, the king holds him in as high esteem as his other two sons, Garsiv and Tus, and makes Dastan an official member of the royal family. Fast-forward a few years, and the Persian army is getting ready to invade the holy city of Alamut, lead by the legendarily beautiful Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton, who you may remember as Bond girl Strawberry Fields from "Quantum of Solace"). The leaders of Persia believe that Alamut is secretly forging large amounts of weapon (*cough cough* of mass destruction *cough cough*) and selling them to Persia's enemies. During the invasion of the holy city, Prince Dastan stumbles upon the mystical Dagger of Time. He is eventually accused of a crime he didn't commit, and is forced on the run from the Persian army, with Princess Tamina conveniently joining him.

So the plot might not be the most original. But if you walked into a theater expecting a movie titled "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" (which sounds just like a 30s adventure serial) to be a wholly original, artistically-made film, than you're living under a rock. But Bruckheimer (who is no stranger to big-budget blockbusters) and director Mike Newell do a fantastic job keeping the plot moving and keeping it interesting the whole way through. Though you never feel like the heroes are in any real danger in the movie (if all else fails they can just hit the "rewind" button on the dagger), there is never a dull moment in the movie, so you never really have any time to realize that you've probably seen all of this stuff in many other big-budget movies before. The action scenes are incredibly well choreographed and paced, and the movie does a fantastic job of making sure that none of the action scenes overstay their welcome (something that director Michael Bay has yet to learn). The parkour stunts are all very impressive, and people who have played the video games will notice some nice nods to the Prince's move set from the game.

Many people questioned the casting of Jake Gyllenhall as the Prince, saying that he's too white to be playing a Persian prince. While yes, that is true, you have to remember that none of the characters in the video game are all that Persian either, and I think Gyllenhall does a fantastic job of translating the Prince's sometimes-arrogent yet still very likable personality to the big screen. I also think I'm becoming a Gemma Arterton fan--she is definitely beautiful, but she's much more than just Megan Fox-type eye candy, as Arterton is a fantastic actress as well whose performance stands up great next to Gyllenhall. The two are at their best when they're going back and forth exchanging smart quips with each other, but all of the "romance" scenes seem very forced, as I almost felt like many of their exchanges seemed more brother-sisterly rather than that of "lovers". Alfred Molina's character is always a joy to see on screen, as his modern-sounding rants about politics and taxes and his deep held love of ostrich racing are always funny.

I don't think it's fair to judge a movie on something that it's not trying to be. "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" doesn't try to be the next landmark movie--it just tries to be an entertaining summer popcorn flick, and in that regard it more than succeeds. It understands the limits of the source material, and constructs a story that is consistently engaging the entire way through. That, combined with some really cool stunts, clever humor, and a fantastic cast, definitely make this a great choice to go see on a Friday or Saturday night with a huge group of friends.

I give it 4/5 stars.

Been a long time--AVATAR review

Okay guys, I'm super sorry for not updating my blog since September--the school year's been pretty crazy and I just never really got around to it. So I figured that now that Christmas break has started, I can kick things back into gear with a good ole movie review of a movie I saw at midnight last night. Ladies and gentlemen: my review of James Cameron's AVATAR.

First, a clarification: this movie is NOT...I repeat NOT based on the Nickelodeon cartoon of the same name. There is in fact a movie coming next year out based on the Nickelodeon cartoon entitled The Last Airbender. But this is entirely different. The original script for this movie was written all the way back in 1994 by writer/director James Cameron, only a few years after his smash hit and action movie revolution film Terminator 2 and only a few years before he created the current box-office record holder Titanic. However, Cameron decided to wait on actually making Avatar, as the budget would have been more than he could afford at the time and he felt that the CGI technology necessary to do the script justice just wasn't there yet. But a couple of years ago, Cameron felt that the time was finally right to make his masterpiece. Using some of the most advanced CGI and 3-D technology seen yet (more on that later), revolutionary filming techniques, and a budget of over $300 million, Cameron has finally brought his dream project to life. So just how good is it?

The answer: simply amazing.

I don't even know where to begin, but I guess I can start talking about the plot. It is certainly a very complex plot that I won't spoil for you, but just to give you the gist of it, Avatar takes place in the year 2154 on the fictional forest planet of Pandora, where an alien race (the Navi) reside. However, humans from the outside world are deeply interested in accessing some sort of extremely valuable mineral located under Pandora's surface, and the Navi living right on top of the largest deposit of the mineral on the entire planet. Using a breakthrough scientific technology, humans have begun creating "Avatars", which are bodies made up of a mix of human and Navi DNA. They have developed a technology that allows humans to actually shift their consciousness into these Avatars, allowing them to live inside these bodies and more easily interact with the natives. The story follows Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), an ex-U.S. Marine, who is assigned to become one of these Avatars and go into the dense forests of Pandora in order to discover what it will take to get the natives to relocate so the humans can access the mineral deposit. However, not everyone agrees with the science community's diplomatic policy: the Military, led by Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), is all in favor of simply wiping out the Navi in order to gain access to the deposit. Without giving too much away, Jake Sully, as an Avatar, is in a race against time to fulfill his mission for the humans, but on the way discovers new things about the Navi, the forests of Pandora, and himself.

It really is an incredible story and is done extremely remarkably. It has close ties to stories we've all heard before, including everything from Pocahontas to the U.S.'s westward expansion to the Iraq War. And it's really one of the only thing that you can fault this movie for: the simple fact that we have heard this story a million times before and it is fairly predictable. But it's really hard to not like the movie because of this fact, as the story is so incredibly timeless and relevant to us today. Though the movie has an obvious bias, it never feels like it gets too preachy, and it really does hold your interest the whole way through, even if you can probably guess what is going to happen.

Now let's talk about visuals. This certainly isn't a movie that you can just brush off the visuals on; the visuals are a MAJOR component of the movie. It's so easy to see why such an incredibly high budget was needed to make this movie. The CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) is easily the most advanced seen in a movie yet. The entirely CGI jungles of Pandora are so incredibly lush and lifelike you'd swear it was a real place (that is, perhaps until you witness the awe that is Pandora's floating mountain range). But where the movie really makes HUGE leaps is with the entirely CGI Navi and Avatar characters. The creatures are so lifelike, their expressions so accurately portraying every last drop of human emotion, that it's hard not to think that these creatures really exist. The way they move and act doesn't look so obviously fake like the billions and billions of other CGI creatures out there. This is the leap that CGI in movies has so desperately needed since it began being used in the mid-90s. We're going to look back and laugh at the so obviously fake CGI that existed prior to this movie. It's really no surprise that such a leap came from James Cameron--after all, the T-1000's morphing ability in Terminator 2 was one of the first major examples of CGI used in movies.

And after seeing Avatar in 3-D, I'm totally convinced that it's the ONLY way to truly experience this film. As one of the first feature films to be fully FILMED in 3-D using special cameras that actually capture depth, it really really delivers. This definitely isn't the gimmicky 3-D where it's blatantly obvious that many shots were catered to making you go "woah!" when you see it in 3-D. Cameron just tells the film the way it should be told, and uses the 3-D effect to greatly enhance it. It really makes it feel more like you're looking out a window into the vast Pandora forest rather than simply viewing it on a flat movie screen. The depth provided by the 3-D is simply stunning. The movie really comes alive in 3-D, and working together with the incredible CGI effects, really transports you into the world of Pandora. I honestly think I would be really disappointed viewing the movie in normal 2-D now that I've seen all three dimensions of it.

The acting is all top notch too. Worthington's character is a really likable guy, and you can really see and entirely understand the conflict he's going through. The villain is also someone that you really really hate by the end of the movie. All of the other actors, including the voice acting and motion capture work done for the Avatars and Navi, is all absolutely top notch.

Overall, Avatar really is a spectacular movie. I really feel like this movie is very comparable to Cameron's original Terminator: a plot that isn't entirely original, yet it just works so well because of the incredible new take on it, combined with some fantastic visual effects. Cameron has already stated that he plans on making sequels if the movie does well in the box office, and it's really one of those movies that I would be totally okay with there being a sequel for. If Cameron DOES make a sequel, I really hopes he does what he did with Terminator 2 and create a sequel that combines an entirely original concept to all of the amazing things done in the first movie to create a movie that will be the standard to which every other movie in the genre is held up to. But for now we have Avatar, which is an absolutely incredible movie in it's own right that may not completely change the way in which movies are written, but will most certainly change the way in which they are presented.

I give it 4.5/5 stars.