Release date: May 28, 2010.
The cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley, Gemma Arterton, Alfred Molina.
The pitch: Prince and princess team up to defeat evil magician. Or, Pirates of the Caribbean meets The Mummy.
The strapline: Defy The Future
The buzz: Franchise alert! The subheading recently added to this suggests Disney are looking for a repeat of its wildly successful Pirates of the Caribbean series. Prince of Persia is one of the better-known franchises in the world of computer games, and more appropriate for the big screen treatment than, say, Sonic the Hedgehog. If director Mike Newell brings the quality he brought to Harry Potter IV – one of the better instalments of that franchise – then this could finally fix Jake Gyllenhaal onto the Hollywood A-list.
Reasons this could be good: As knockabout action trailers go, this delivers, if not in spades, then in magic time-travelling daggers. While there are nods to fans of the computer games (see him jumping from level to level at 1:36) there is enough good old-fashioned stuntwork to open this up to a mainstream audience. Newell’s pedigree is evident in the sweeping landscapes (0:59 and 1:57) and the Prince of Thieves-esque arrow POV shot (1:03) and, though it pains me to say it, Gyllenhaal’s English accent is really rather good, what?
Reasons this could be bad: Arterton’s English accent may be good, but that’s about the only thing remotely successful about her wooden delivery. And she’s English. The CGI action scenes may look well-executed, but there are so many of them! This trailer is like having a bucket of special effects thrown in your face. And doesn’t it seem a little bit like watching someone else play a really exciting Prince of Persia videogame? As anyone who had to share a games console with a relative while growing up will know, watching someone else play is not fun in the slightest.
We think: This really is Pirates by numbers, isn’t it? American heartthrob with Brit accent? Check. Beautiful-but-terrible Brit actress? Check. Supporting cast of Brit character actors? Check. Faintly ludicrous CGI action? Check. Although there are action setpieces galore in this trailer, there is a distinct dearth of killer one-liners. Watch any of the Pirates trailers again and see how many of Johnny Depp’s funny little Briticisms are in there. The only equivalent moment in this trailer is Gyllenhaal being lost for words in a vaguely amusing fashion. Films like this live and die by the quality of their scripts, so we’ll need more evidence of that before being convinced this is one to watch.
Music: My guess is an excerpt of the score from Pirates 3. All pounding strings and massed, portentous-sounding choirs.
Did you spot?: Richard Coyle, the scene-stealing Welsh funnyman from much-missed Britcom “Coupling” at 00:49
The odds of you seeing it: Pirates really split people down the middle. If you liked that, chances are you’ll see this. If not, there’s nothing new for you here.
