Jordan Mechner is well aware that films are different from games. It's based on one of the most venerable and robust of all games franchises, and the creator of this iconic brand has been keeping a watchful eye on its celluloid progeny. Mike Newell's film enjoys the benefits of a budget of more than $130m and a raft of promising stars. If indeed one were going to, it ought to have been Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Surely, it might be thought, one of them must eventually come good. Nonetheless, such films continued to appear in ever greater numbers. Most of the based-on-games films, from Super Mario Bros in 1993 to BloodRayne in 2006, were flops by any standard. However, even these titles were critically reviled. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider took $131m at the box office, and Mortal Kombat took $70m. So, in the early 1990s, they began to make movies that were based on games. They were impressed by gamers' passionate attachment to their favourite titles. This didn't stop film-makers from returning the compliment that the rival medium had paid them. Somehow, film-based games too often became just imitations of existing products. Nonetheless, a deeper problem seemed to beset them. Developers complained of deadline pressures and being forced to stick too closely to source material. So, in the hope of expanding their market, they started to make games that were based on films. Game-makers noted that while their customers were prepared to stump up more than cinemagoers, the latter were far more numerous. Understandably, each side began to wonder if it could perhaps feed off the other's success. The games business grew huge, but the movies too continued to flourish. To the surprise of some, it never happened. So, the movies would be superseded by the medium of the future. People were expected to spurn passive forms of entertainment: instead, they'd supposedly insist on participating themselves. An age of interactivity was thought to have begun.
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Indeed, film feared gaming, and gaming scorned film. Arterton, a current Brit It actress, favors rock-star eye makeup and a mall-teen pout to express Tamina’s deAvotion to weapons and sand.In the beginning, cinema and video games kept their distance from each other. The princess is serious about her duties as guardian of the dagger that contains a travel-size sample of the legendary sands with which a human can turn back time. Dastan forms an instant rom-com sparring connection with the Alamutian princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton). On Nazim’s recommendation, the brothers attack the holy city of Alamut, with fateful consequences. Together, they receive counsel from their wily uncle Nazim (Ben Kingsley wearing eyeliner, so beware).
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Stained a rich George Hamilton teak in adulthood and bravely committed to a hairstyle reminiscent of Facebook-friendless Kip Drordy on South Park, Dastan has two nobly born stepbrothers: Tus (Richard Coyle as the square-featured and hesitant one) and Garsiv (Toby Kebbell as the toothy and bellicose one).
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Gyllenhaal plays the grown-up Prince Dastan, adopted as a resourceful street kid by a sixth-century Persian king.
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As sword-and-sandal fantasy movies based on videogames and starring a buffed-up Jake Gyllenhaal go, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time goes pretty well.