Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Prince of Persia is another movie based on a video game. The story opens with some background on the ruler of the Persian Kingdom and his family. He has a loyal brother, two natural born sons, and a third son adopted in a bazar just before his hand could be lopped off. Our hero is this adopted son, Dastan. Fast forward to the present and we find the three brothers and their uncle debating whether to sack the holy city of Alamut. Uncle Nizam (Ben Kingsley) provides damning evidence that Alamut is aiding the enemies of Persia and the decision is made to attack.

Meanwhile, Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton), who appears to be ruler and high priestess of Alamut, entrusts a sacred dagger to be spirited from the city. As chance would have it, the rider encounters Dastan (Jake Gylenhaal) and loses the dagger in the ensuing fight. No sooner has the city been secured and Tamina been slated to marry Dastan's eldest brother, Tus, than all goes amiss. The Emperor is killed by a holy robe that Dastan had offered him as a gift. All eyes fall on Dastan and he runs for his life, enlisting Tamina to get him out of the city.

While Dastan wants to prove his innocence, Tamina wants to recover the dagger. So, they are wary allies. Having escaped into the desert, Tamina makes her move to recover the dagger but Dastan, by pure chance, activates its power. The dagger allows one to travel up to a minute back in time. It is fueled by the magic sand that is held in the hilt. Once the sand is gone, it is just an ornate dagger.

The action is over the top. At one point, Dastan finds himself on collapsing ruins inundated with sand. He leaps and tumbles from one crumbling ruin to the next with some of the most outlandish acrobatics. The villain has hired a gang of assassins (before assassin existed, at least by that name) who use a variety of unlikely weapons, the most noteworthy being the razor whip and the flinging finger darts. Dastan managed to get the assistance of Sheik Amar (Alfred Molina) - a sort of king of thieves - and Seso, his Ngbaka muscle.

Now, for the inexplicable. So, the villain finally gets his hands on the dagger. What does he do with it? Why, he sets it on a decorative pedestal in a remote tower of Alamut and assigns one of the surviving assassins to protect it. See, he's busy digging for the source of the magic sand and can't be encumbered with this dagger. It should come as no surprise that our heroes recover the dagger.

It isn't great but it is entertaining while it lasts.

BloodRayne

 Here is my take on BloodRayne, posted January 6, 2006:

 

Yeah, I admit it, I went to see this movie because the latest terminator was going to run around in hardly anything and swing a sword. Hey, where could that go wrong? Well, go wrong it did. I have never played the video game on which it is based so have no background as to whether the movie does a good job of portraying it. However, the acting is terrible, the fight scenes are laughable, the fake blood looks like something from a low budget SciFi Channel movie, and the storyline is mostly incomprehensible. It was amazing how many ariel views of people riding horses across the countryside this movie had, always with one character or another speaking to set up the next piss poor fight.

I thought Kristanna Loken made a fine terminator. She looked good in nothing, she had that blank look on her face that gave her the impression of being a robot, and she didn't speak much. Little did I know that was her acting style. There was one point where she is killing a bunch of guys and the villian gives her a punch to the jaw. Oh, she's out.

I must not understand the vampires of the Blood Rayne game. It seems they die just fine if you stab them with a sword. The vampire killers of the Brimstone Society seem to use ordinary weapons though the big villain required a crossbow bolt to the heart.

The time period of the movie was unclear. I checked on the BloodRayne official movie site and it is supposed to be 1723 in some unstated Eastern European country. Okay, with names like Gregor, Kagan, Katarin, and Vladimir that makes sense. But why are the women using English accents? And gunpowder only comes from China and no one actually uses muskets or cannon. And all the female characters run around in tight leather pants (I appreciate that but it sort of detracts from the setting).

The production was really bad. As I said earlier, this was like some TV movie. As it was done so cheaply, I was really surprised to see the stars who were in it. There was Ben Kingsley as the villain, Michael Madsen (Mr. Blonde) as Vladimir, Billy Zane (Titanic), and Meat Loaf (okay, I wasn't surprised to see him in a cheap movie).

To top it off, it wasn't even of the so bad it's funny. It dragged on and on, leaving me bored for much of the movie. Do not throw your money away on this movie. Wait until next week when it comes out on the SciFi Channel.

It turns out this was the first Uwe Boll movie that I saw.  Boll has since been described as a modern Ed Wood; he makes bad movies.  What impresses me is that he managed to get big names to star in his bad movies.