Well, this looks… expensive. The first trailer for Jerry Bruckheimer’s forthcoming summer blockbuster/video game adaptation “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” has hit over at IGN, and it’s more or less or what we were expecting. Riffing heavily on the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, there’s an attempt at would-be sparkling dialogue between Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Princess Exposition (Gemma Arterton), some swashbuckling action, and an absolute shit-load of CGI.
We’re trying to find some nice things to say about this, and could only come up with: 1) Gyllenhaal’s accent is not as immediately terrible as it could have been (although why Persia is full of white English people is somewhat unclear), 2) Alfred Molina is in it, 3) It doesn’t seem to be as stuffed with parkour, the hot action trend of 2006, as we thought it could be, 4) Toby Kebbell is in the film (although not the trailer, as far as we can tell), and 5) Director Mike Newell made “Donnie Brasco,” a very good movie.
It’s also important to remember that, once placed in context, this could end up being dumb fun — it’s still a strong cast (although we’re not sure about Gemma Arterton’s line readings, but again, context will be the proof), and the first ‘Pirates’ movie is one of the better summer movies of recent times. Unfortunately, “Prince of Persia” seems to be taking its lead from the over-cluttered sequels to that film: can anyone really decipher what’s going on here?
