Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Sir Ben Kingsley, Gemma Arterton
Directed by: Mike Newell
Opens May 28, 2010
After turning a theme-park ride into a billion-dollar movie franchise with Pirates of the Caribbean, Disney and super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer try their hand at videogame adaptations with this adventure inspired by the blockbuster Ubisoft title. Gyllenhaal bulked up considerably for his first action role as Dastan, a renegade prince who battles his evil uncle Nizam (Kingsley) for possession of a magical dagger capable of controlling time itself. Former Bond girl Arterton stars as Dastan’s feisty love interest Tamina.
What We Think: We loved the game, but videogame adaptations have a famously dismal record at the multiplex, and we’re still not convinced that Maggie’s little bro can hack it as an action star. That said, it’s never wise to bet against Bruckheimer.
Cool to Know: The first Prince of Persia game debuted in 1989 on the Apple IIe personal computer, which featured a then-impressive 64 kb of RAM — roughly 1/8192 that of the Xbox 360.
