There will be a Persian Gulf forming in families going to the multiplex this weekend. Moms will be heading to Abu Dhabi for the female finery of “Sex and the City 2”. Unfortunately, the Memorial Day weekend choice for chic sheiks of the male persuasion panders less effectively to its audience. Disney is enticing fellas and kids to a “Mess-opotamia” known as “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.”
If you go
“Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time”
1 out of 5 stars
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina
Director: Mike Newell
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action
Running Time: 115 minutes
In part, this lavishly appointed Middle East muddle is a cheesy, anachronistic sword-and-sandal adventure. It’s a little bit like the kind they used to make in the Technicolor 1950s, only the Golden Age stars were infinitely more charismatic and larger than life than Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton. And the straightforward storylines of that era used to make at least some sense. But mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer, a pasha of soulless entertainment, had something else in mind. He had his “creative” team force a weird sci-fi, time-traveling twist into a still stiff costume epic. Ancient civilization meets fiery-flashy, brain-addling CGI special effects.
Bruckheimer has a fat checkbook. So he’s able to buy fancy names to put the proverbial lipstick on his Persian pig, which is based on the videogame series “Prince of Persia.” The screenplay and story are credited to four different writers, never a good sign. But accomplished director Mike Newell (“Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Donnie Brasco”) enlists similarly reputable fellow Brits — Ben Kingsley (as villain) and Alfred Molina (as comic relief) — to try to class up the joint. Someone even obliges the principal cast’s only American, Gyllenhaal, to speak with a Limey accent.
Why? Uh, didn’t everyone in 6th century B.C. Asia speak the Queen’s English?
Such stabs at respectability can’t compensate for a kooky ride in which a buff doofus named Dastan (Gyllenhaal), adopted son of Persia’s King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup), gets hold of a magic dagger. It can send people back in time so, for instance, they can redo a battle and triumph. A feisty, extraordinarily beautiful princess (are there any another kind?) hopes to protect the ancient secret and will, of course, hook up with our hero. She is played by Arterton, the still expressionless brunette Barbie doll from “Clash of the Titans.”
And since there must be many redundant excuses for overlong scenes of hut-jumping, sword-clanging, whip-cracking action, Dastan’s scheming royal Uncle Nizam (Kingsley) enlists help to compete against the cute couple for the latest in Iron Age dagger technology.
Babylonian boredom ensues.
