Bobbins Film Review: Prince of Persia.

 Seeing a film can have a terrible influence on the impartiality of the reviewer. I for example would have probably felt much more positively about X-Men 3 had I not actually been to the pictures and watched it. However instead of  an extended episode of Frasier where Frasier is inexplicably covered with blue fur and Cam Winston has magnetic powers I instead had to face the realities of Vinnie Jones with a bucket on his head saying “I’m the Juggernaut…bitch!”.  Similarly had I not bought Spiderman 3 I wouldn’t have had to burn down the shop where I bought it.

Unfortunately there were unavoidable circumstances which forced me to watch Prince of Persia before I reviewed it. Those circumstances being that the Draft Board left me in the house unattended and I couldn’t bring myself to trudge further through the homoerotic ‘classic’ that is Gears of War.  (Four men with enormous necks try to prove they aren’t gay by shooting things.) I therefore spent the morning with the film ‘Chocolate’ a film which raises the question “What if an autistic girl was really good a fighting?” and then answers it by making her fight a man who’s special power is spasms and killing off her mother.  One day I may even review Chocolate properly but at present I’m still trying to get to grips with its gang of gun wielding transsexuals.

I do however feel qualified to review Prince of Persia because despite watching it from beginning to end and remembering the overall plot I have managed to erase almost every scene from my mind. I’m almost certain that things happened in the film but I couldn’t really say what or why.

What I do remember is the following –

1. There are lots of bits where the Prince is running away from guards/bandits and sometimes he waves his sword at them but you don’t really see anything because they are wearing robes.

2. The funny one from Coupling plays the king so you spend all the time saying “Look it’s the man from Coupling” and wondering how he got into a big budget film. The same thing happened with Pirates of the Carribean where the main one from Coupling played the strict man who dressed up like Treize Kushrianada. (Then Captain Jack escpaes from his handcuffs and steals Gundam Epyon.)

3. The bit when Ben Kinglsey says “But I don’t have the dagger” is the best bit of the film.

4. There are no Persian people in it.

5. The Prince of Persia isn’t really a Prince at all but a beggar boy who was adopted by the king one day. This is because you can’t expect the common man to sympathise with an actual Prince. There is a big difference between someone who has lived all their life in luxury and someone who has lived only the vast majority of their life in luxury but still didn’t really earn it. The ten minute flashback sequence used to establish this at the start of the film is well worth it. Needlessly long films are just better value for money!

6. Alfred Molina plays Omid Djallili a hilariously greedy merchant who follows the protagonist around making wisecracks.

Snake Faced man: “Watch out Prince of Persia I’m going to send my snakes at you”

Omid Djalili: “The power of the sun in my hand”

Prince of Persia: “Shut up and RUN!”

7. The princess is irritating and has a big face.

8. At no point in the film is there a speech regarding how the birds managed to survive the sand which ends with the prince saying “I don’t believe they DID survive.” Hopefully this will feature in the sequel.

Apart from these key scenes the majority of the film is taken up with stock footage of eastern street markets and left over bits from Indiana Jones films. This may not be strictly true but watching the film certainly gives you the impression that really you could watch most of the scenes in any order and still make as much sense. So far as I could tell the plot involved a man who looked like Orlando Bloom finding a magic dagger that can reverse time but the special effects cost so much that it can’t reverse time too often. He is then framed for killing the king with a ‘poisoned cloak’ which causes the king to melt but only after wearing the cloak for a while. Several events happen. He reverses time to the before the king got killed and brings the perpetrator to justice for something he hasn’t done yet.

For these reasons I must give Prince of Persia a Strength of Rustan out of a no that’s not how it happened.