The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time a.k.a. Unnecessary Slow Motion like Watchmen but not as good as Watchmen

Spoiler Alert: All the main characters are not Persian what-so-ever. There. Now that that's out the way, let's get started.

For all of those that are fans of the Prince of Persia video games, Disney Pictures, Jerry Bruckheimer and the actor Jake Gyllenhaal, congrats, they've all combined to make something that sucked. Normally, when it comes to movies based on video games, I take an extremely critical look from a gamers perspective, but, this is not the case. If the movie was made as a film created on its own, it still would go through the blender that I have when critiqing movies. F.Y.I. the blender is set to frappe'.

The backstory is that two brothers, one king named unimportant, and one not named Nizam (played by Ben Kingsley), rule Persia. Eventually, the king had two sons. One day, while out and about in the streets of Agrabah or whatever, they notice a boy, named Dastan, fighting the royal guards who are commiting acts of domestic violence on his friend, Bis. The king, seeing the boy's courage, decides to adopt him. So, now the king has three sons. If only men of the 21st century would take care of their baby-mama's children just as well.

So, the king's sons grow up as the Princes of Persia. One is Dastan, played by Jake Gyllenhall, or Donny Darko as I like to call him. The second brother is Garsiv, played by ...some guy. I don't know his name, so he'll just be called "other-guy". The third is Tus, played by the dude from Hot Fuzz, Simon Pegg, which was surprising. I've never seen him play a serious role so this made the movie interesting to me. Plus, he looks a lot like that lycan dude from Underworld in this movie. Wait...what? That's not Simon Pegg!? Ugh...I suddenly lost hope again. So,...yes..uh..three brothers! However, the title is singular, so, the only prince you need to focus on is one, Mister Donny Darko himself.

So, the royal family gets word that the city Alamut is conspiring with Persia's enemies and the Brothers Persia, along with uncle Nizzy, go to see what's up. There, uncle Nizzy, shows them that the city of Alamut have been making weapons against Persia and tries to convince Prince Tus, who is in command of operations, to attack even though the king wishes not to. He succeeds, and Persia attacks. At night, "Other-guy" attacks the front while Donny Darko sneaks into the back. It's at this point where the acrobatics begin its saturation of the film. With a hop and a skip, Donny Darko, gets the back gate open letting the Persian army in the ol' backdoor...literally, not figuratively (Would it have sounded worse if I mentioned he used oils?). As they fight, the Princess of Alamut, played by Gemma Arterton seen in Clash of the Titans, tries to get rid of a sacred dagger by giving it to some dude to escape with. This dagger is obviously very important to her people, the city,... and the storyline. Side note: Why does she always play the role of a chick who knows everything but doesn't reveal all the facts until towards the end where s__t done already hit the fan? Like, in Clash O.T. Titans, why didn't she mention Madeusa in the beginning. That would have saved us a trip. And, if we could've just walked out the underworld through a cave, why did we have to take a boat to get there? But, I digress.

Anyway, lo and behold, who runs into the escaper? None other than Donny Darko, who beats up the guy and takes the sacred dagger...mmm...just because. Once the slo-mo fighting has settled, the brothers wait for the king to arrive and go over the spoils. The princess stresses that they have made no weapons. The king himself is even unsure if the facts of Alamut's treason were true. Prince Tus decides to stay in the city and find these "weapons of mass destruction" to assure the king that they straight. Anyway, lets par-TAY! So, Prince Tus gives Donny Darko this bedazzled robe to give to the king AND take the credit (because Prince Tus knows the king is a fan of Elvis?) and also wants him to ask the king if Prince Tus can have the princess to marry to add to his many wives. Sister wives spin-off? All the Persian forces gather to celebrate. Donny Darko comes to the king with the princess to suggest giving her to Prince Tus. The king decides to give her to Donny Darko instead. At least she wasn't a hand-me-down. Then, Darko offers the king the robe gift and once the king puts it on, because of an allergic reaction to poly-cotton blends, he begins to burn alive. Yes, burn alive....from a robe. The king dies and everyone thinks Donny Darko did it on purpose and they try to kill him. The princess, noticing that Donny has the sacred dagger on him, helps him escape...by jumping out of a four story window into a kiddie pool. Bis, Donny's child hood friend, dies trying to defend Darko's escape. Aww.


So, out in the desert due to involuntary exile, Donny Darko and the Princess tussle about over the dagger. It's at this moment, just before she's about to stab him in the face, that Darko discovers the true power of the sacred dagger. He presses the button on top of it and suddenly he's shifted backward through time, like TiVo, watching himself reenact the events that just happened, but in reverse. So, Darko deduces that his brother Prince Tus set him up and that he's after the dagger for its power. At the same time, Prince Tus sends word that there's a bounty on Donny Darko's head and sends his brother "Other-guy" with an army after him.


Eventually, after wandering in the dessert, the princess begins to see the kind-hearted street rat that Darko really is. However, the dessert that they've wandered into belongs to the murderous thugs of the "Valley of Slaves". Not to be confused with the "Dessert of the Real", property owned by Morpheus sans the Matrix. They get captured by Sheik Amar played by Alfred Molina, or "Doctor Octopus" in Spider-Man 2, along with his crew which includes, "Big Leering Angry Carrying Knives" man or B.L.A.C.K. man for short. They take Donny Darko and the Princess to the inner sanctum of the Valley of Slaves (no offense to B.L.A.C.K. man). There, we find out that the murderous residence of the Valley aren't so murderous. Instead, Amar runs a ostrich racing derby and keeps the residents safe with rumors that the Valley is evil, rumors he doctored up himself to keep Persians and other kingdoms away. So, it's fair to call him "Doc Oc" from now on. His community is happy with the fact that the entire valley is war and tax free. If only President Obama's campaign was so easy-going. After some comic relief, Doc Oc reveals that he knows Donny Darko is wanted for murdering his father and hopes to collect the bounty. The princess releases his ostriches upon the crowd causing a riot giving her and Donny a chance to escape.

Getting fed up, Donny Darko decides to sneak back into his kingdom and tell his uncle Nizzy what really happened using the dagger as proof. But, when he sees him, he notices that his uncle's hands are burned which means HE was the one that sabotaged the robe that killed the king.
Uncle Nizzy...killed...his own brother! Dum dum duuuuuummmm. It's like Hamlet but...never been done before! (-_-) So, arrows are flying as Donny realizes that it's an ambush with his brother, "other-guy", chasing him. More jump-flip-slo-mo hopping as Donny Darko escapes.

It's at this point we see uncle Nizzy's true character as he has his own assassin camp deep in the recesses of the castle. One with whips, one with shooting daggars, and one with a pet snake. I like to call this assassin "Ol' Blue Eyes". Uncle Nizzy sends them on the hunt for Donny Darko.


While Donny and the princess hide in the dessert, she tells him the story of the sacred dagger - about...The Sands of Time.Here, I'll spare you the details: The gods hate mankind's inner evil but LOVES their inner good. So, if you use the dagger to access their sands of time with evil intentions, everyone dies, but if you convince them you're good, everyone lives! Donny Darko deduces that uncle Nizzy wants to use the sands of time to go back to when he and the king were kids and let the king die in a jungle gym accident so that the three princes are never born and he can be king. Jealous much? Where is the sands of time? Underneath the city of Alamut where President-elect Tus, uncle Nizzy, and the Persian army are waiting. Good luck.

Although,in more detail, it would have been more dramatic if they had mentioned the king and uncle Nizzy almost dying as kids in the beginning rather than just coming out the ass with it near the end of the movie. Like, c'mon, really? Not even a plot twist. More like a plot complete change.

The princess and Donny decide to go to a sanctuary outside Alamut where the dagger originated to return it to some sacred stone to be safe. On the way there, they get caught again by Doc Oc, B.L.A.C.K. man, and crew. They're pissed about the ostriches lost. Later, they get attacked by vipers belonging to Ol' Blue Eyes, but Donny Darko kills them, thus, saving their lives. Why the assassins didn't continue the assault? I don't know, but the princess convinces Doc Oc to help them get to the sanctuary offering to him all the gold there. On their trail is "Other-guy" and his army trying to catch up with his brother, Darko. Following after, is the assassin crew. For some reason the montage of them chasing Darko looks like an opening of New York Undercover.
Once they get there, "other-guy" shows up and Darko convinces him that uncle Nizzy is evil. Hurray! One of the brothers is on Darko's side now! But... "other-guy" gets killed...by the assassins who've just shown up. Aww. There's a fight scene as the princess tries to sacrifice herself to seal the dagger away, but she is stopped by the assassin with the whip. *Begin more slo-mo-jump-flip bullet time* Ol Blue Eyes's gets the dagger and retreats with the assassins. Now, the good guys have no choice but to go inside Alamut and face Prince Tus and uncle Nizzy.

So, inside the castle, the plan is to steal the dagger back from the top of the castle guarded by the assassin with the shooting daggers. Looks like a job for B.L.A.C.K. Man! After his "Revolver Ocelot" shoot-out with the assassin, B.L.A.C.K. man dies but not before throwing the sacred dagger outside to Donny Darko who then heads to his brother Prince Tus. Donny convinces his brother of the sabotage by stabbing himself and telling him the sacred dagger will rewind time. Prince Tus presses the dagger to save his brother Donny and now believes Darko over his treacherous uncle Nizzy. Yay! We have the second brother on Donny's side! But,....he gets killed by uncle Nizzy immediately after that. Damn. An assassin knocks down Donny and uncle Nizzy escapes with the sacred dagger. But just then, the princess comes in and distracts the assassin and Donny kills him. ....... These assassins suck. And, why is it that Prince Tus gets killed so easily by his uncle? You would think a dude who fought in numerous battles alongside Donny Darko would be just as skilled if not better at defending himself. It wasn't even like a sneak attack. Uncle Nizzy just walked up and cut him, like.....wtf?

So, uncle Nizzy takes the direct route entrance while Donny Darko and the Princess take a "raiders of the lost ark" way. This secret way is booby trapped so....more jump-skip-hop-slo-mo time right into the last assassin, "Ol' Blue Eyes". During the fight, the princess comes outta no where and saves Donny. So,...that assassin is dead. And now we stand at the under-makings of the palace where we see the Sands of Time, which is a big hour glass of sorts. Uncle Nizzy throws the princess off the edge of a cliff and Donny catches her just as uncle Nizzy is about to puncture the Sand with the dagger and because he is evil, that would be bad. So, Donny lets the princess fall in order to reach the dagger as uncle Nizzy puts it in. You can see the sand beginning to react to their inner hearts and it seems the sand chooses Donny's over uncle Nizzy's. It then stops the destruction and sends Donny Darko back in time to just when the Persian army won the battle on Alamut in the beginning. Darko, being the only one who remembers everything that had happened, then goes before the people and tells his brothers that there were never any W.M.D.'s nor that Alamut was ever an enemy of Persia and that it was all a trick by uncle Nizzy. Prince Tus, alive and well, must then choose who's telling the truth between Darko and uncle Nizzy based on his own problem solving skills. He chooses Darko, which makes uncle Nizzy mad and they fight and just before Nizzy is about to stab Darko, Prince Tus stabs him saving Darko.

Finally, they go to the princess who is also alive again, and ask for forgiveness and then her hand in marriage but not to Prince Tus, but to Donny Darko. After talking about bull and holding hands, (which was also in slo-mo) it's obvious that she accepted. So, all's well that ends well. Since time has been rewound and changed, everyone is alive again! The king lives. Bis lives. Princess lives. Prince Tus and Other-Guy lives. B.L.A.C.K. Man lives. The assassins live, although they will need to get new jobs now. Everyone lives! Except uncle Nizzy...and the thousands of soldiers who died in the battle during the Persian army attacking Alamut. Here are my issues however. It's cool doing some ol' batman/spider-man crap, but every ten seconds? And in slow motion? It's the only reason why the film was damn near two hours long. And the ending, "Okay, so my army just came and killed thousands of your men, probably women and children , and you still want to go out with me?" Good for you, Donny Darko! Just don't let her get hit by a car.
All in all, this movie was the middle child to Jerry Bruckheimer's other film production, Pirates of the Caribbean. It didn't get as much attention. But, after doing so many years of the C.S.I TV series, we can't be to hard on this mess. I guess we'll just sweep it under...the Persian rug. *Puts on sunglasses, cue C.S.I. Miami intro* "YEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"