Could PRINCE OF PERSIA be the world’s first good video-game adaptation?
Could PRINCE OF PERSIA be the world’s first good video-game adaptation?
Mar 25 
The Prince Of Persia reboot The Sands Of Time, released way back in 2003, was a turning point in gaming. It had smooth 3D platforming, slickly-animated characters, solid atmosphere and art design, and a unique mechanic enabling players to mess around with time. It was a simple, ingenious and well-implemented idea: if you fudged a jump, mistimed a swing, or accidentally let go of a button and plummetted onto a bed of massive spikes, you could just press rewind and get back to the place you were a few seconds ago, no harm done. It obviated the “GAME OVER, IDIOT” screen that so annoys gamers, and kept the action smooth and streamlined. It even tied in with the narrative — the whole game was presented as a story being recounted by the eponymous prince, and whenever you did manage to die while playing it would hit the Game Over screen and the Prince would mutter “No, no — that’s not how it happened” and he’d resume the story from your last checkpoint. Neato!
Small-scale time-twitchery is harder to pull off on the big-screen when you can’t directly interact and feel the consequences of your actions, but that’s exactly what appears to be happening in the trailer for Prince Of Persia. It’s even got some of the ridiculous parkour-meets-The Matrix wallclimbing and platforming of the game, not to mention armies of possibly-undead bad dudes and a very enjoyable aesthetic. This all bodes well for the upcoming blockbuster.
The film version of PoP is directed by Mike Newell, he of Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire fame (number 4, with the dragons and the Robert Pattinson cameo). Harry 4 was over-CGI-ified but the core narrative was solid and the downer ending hit as hard as a scene from a family film can reasonably expect to; Jerry Bruckheimer’s overseeing the whole production, and it gives off a vibe not dissimilar to that of Pirates Of The Caribbean: a slick, smooth, hip update of a popular mythology. The world collectively raised its eyebrows when Jake Gyllenhaal was selected to portray the titular prince, but on-set photos soon assuaged doubt: Gyllenhaal had a proper mop of hair and was suitably “chesty” to fill the role, and all was well on the internets.
A few things to note about the trailer: the accents are a kind of grimey British lilt, with just enough attitude to offset the supposed regality of the characters; the screenwriters appear to have attempted to hack a kind of Han / Leia repartee between the leads (Gyllenhaal and Aussie lass Gemma Arterton) to varying degrees of success; and the CGI looks considerably more accomplished and detailed than either Pirates Of The Caribbean or Harry Potter 4. This all seems to point in one direction: the filmmakers want us to have a fun time at the cinema, and I can’t argue with that good will. Oh, did I mention it’s also got Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina? Well, now you know.
Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Times hits Aussie screens on the 27th of May 2010; US and UK releases follow a day later on the 28th
