Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME (2010) - May 28, 2010
A decent if kind of mediocre film about a prince who finds himself framed for murder, and in possession of a mystical dagger that can rewind time.  The movie was basically entertaining, and featured some affable lead performances from Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton.  Its main problem (aside from a mild case of overlength) is that Mike Newell's direction just wasn't very good.  It was passable enough most of the time, if nothing special, but Newell absolutely falls on his face when it comes to directing action.  With few exceptions, the action scenes were all poorly staged and sloppily edited, and were not nearly as exciting or fun as they should have been.  It also doesn't help that Newell WAY overuses Zack Snyder-style slow-mo to fast-mo, which gets old quite fast (and I don't even think that a lot of it was planned in advance, as much of the slow-mo looked like it wasn't shot with that in mind).  Also, the special effects were kind of questionable, and a lot of the time it looked like they were on sets.  I don't know.  It wasn't terrible, I guess.  I'm between a two and a two and a half for this one.  Meh, whatever.  The ever-elusive good videogame movie remains just out of reach.  **1/2