Not to be confused with Pirates of the Caribbean or Thief of BaghdadBy John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"
Princess Tamina: "Only the Dagger can unlock the Sands of Time. And there are those who would use this power to destroy the world."
Playing with time can be dangerous, tricky, and silly. True in the case of this year's Hot Tub Time Machine and less so but still mindless is producer Jerry Bruckheimer's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Medieval Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) and a Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) team up to return sand to the handle of a magic knife that will save the world.
You don't need to know more because little else makes sense except the ability of editing to cut so quickly to action that anything can happen as long as someone says it was so; you can't tell from what you see, generally a blur. But then you've seen it all already: Jake mimicking Harrison Ford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Errol Flynn with flying leaps and blinding sword play.
The princess is, of course, patterned after Princess Leia, and bad Uncle Nazim by Sir Ben Kingsley, whose role as advisor recommending conquering an innocent kingdom under the ruse that it sells weapons to the Persian's enemies channels very nicely Dick Cheney and his Iraq War supporters.
More than interest in the veiled allusion to the 21st century is the ironic humor, lame as it is, especially between Dastan and Tamina. Somehow Indiana Jones had better lines in his worst films, and these two can't come close to Han Solo and Princess Leia. (For example:
Prince Dastan: You really enjoy telling me what to do, don't you?
Tamina: Only because you are so good at following orders.
Prince Dastan: Don't press your luck.)
My advice for the beginning of summer: Don't take a safari; just order a cool gin and tonic, and if it comes with Prince of Persia or Sex and the City 2, enjoy the sand without heat or wit.
John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com