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Prince of Persia: What Film Critics Said
Despite the flashy trailers and hype surrounding the launch of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the film didn't quite get the accolades Beefcake Gyllenhaal might've hoped for.
The film hits theaters tomorrow, but has already gotten its share of negative reviews. Sands of Time has garnered an overall Metacritic score of 50 (based on 25 critic reviews thus far) putting it in the yellow.
Here's what film critics had to say:
In one of the most positive reviews, Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum gave the movie a "B" and writes, "I wish the movie weren't so visually junky-looking, and that the CGI action sequences (involving sand, and weapons, and the possible destruction of the world) weren't so vacant. But hey, this is what a videogame movie looks like now. I know I can't turn back time." The Hollywood Reporter's Ray Bennett calls the movie a "sword and sand adventure that's entertaining but without substance." And says Gyllenhaal is "certainly fit, and the British accent he uses to match the rest of the cast works fine, but there's something a touch hangdog in Gyllenhaal's demeanor that is probably intended to show self-deprecation but instead can appear insipid." Ouch.
Moving on, the Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert says, "Jake Gyllenhaal could make the cover of a muscle mag, but he plays Dastan as if harboring Spider-Man's doubts and insecurities." The New York Times' Manohla Dargis writes, "For the most part this is perfectly painless mush. The movie is irrepressibly silly — what were you expecting? — but a few hours of Mr. Gyllenhaal jumping around in leather and fluttering his long lashes has its dumb-fun appeal..." And finally as we make our way toward the bottom of the Metacritic rankings there's David Denby of The New Yorker who writes "Prince of Persia is meant purely as light entertainment, but the way it draws on layers of junk is depressing. It’s based on clichés not only from old paintings but from some of the fruitiest and most swollen nineteen-fifties period spectacles..."
So there you have it. Who wants to go see Jake-y in all his muscle mag, British accented glory? Anyone?
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