Working together for a living planet

Saturday, May 29, 2010

nuffnang special screening: prince of persia: the sands of time

i was rather lucky though to be selected to join nuffnang special screening of prince of persia: the sands of time the other night. its all thanks to the simple-and-dunno-what-crazy slogan i posted... hiks!

alrighto. why this screening was special. that's because nuffnangers has been treated to an exclusive ‘snack & screen’ session courtesy of mister potato! andre yaa andre ya riba riba...


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i already got too excited on the day i arrived kuala lumpur when i saw this on the lrt



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this time i brought my cousin nivin. and as soon as we reached cathay cineplex damansara at 8.30 pm sharp, look at that people~ the line was already long enough fuhh!!!...



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and as usual, we had to register before anything else. and were given 2 canisters each of the new rice crisps by mister potato. to those who still dunno, that's robb over there ;P



and as what we bloggers normally never missed to do as well... camwhoring!!! no matter what~



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here's me with nicholas



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with my cousin nivin



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and another with nicholas, this time with rina too :))






alright, i guess let's see what i think about this movie though:

with the greasy, unkempt hair of an emo rocker and a bart simpson smirk, 'the prince' goes swinging, leaping, slashing and joking his way through 'prince of persia: the sands of time', an energetic if empty-headed adventure based on the popular video game. though set in a sea of sand that's supposed to be ancient persia, the movie features a titular hero whose anachronistic catchphrases – "that all ya got?" and "whoa", uttered in an incongruous cockney accent – makes him sound less like a middle eastern prince than an east end pothead.

the focus of prince dastan's acrobatic exertions, which careen from ninja-like moves to the wall-bouncing gymnastics of parkour, is a special dagger he has stumbled upon. when a jewel is pressed on its hilt, releasing the few thimblefuls of sand inside, it has the ability to rewind time, but only for one minute. it's like adam s's magical remote control in "click," but with a weak battery. when you run out of sand, you run out of power.

not just any sand will work, either. hidden underground is a giant glass vessel filled with the right kind. only the dagger can break the glass. once broken, the sand inside will flow through the knife's handle, giving its user virtually unlimited ability to travel backward in time. one more thing: if all the sand is used up, the world will end.

the other problem is that dastan's not the only one who knows about it. someone else wants it – most likely dastan's brother tus or his uncle nizam – and has set dastan up for the murder of his adoptive father, king sharaman. dastan, you see, is not of royal blood, so he makes a logical suspect (it might also explain the low-class accent and his aversion to shampoo). whoever really killed sharaman wants dastan out of the way so that he can find the source of the charmed sand himself and, you know, exert dominion over the blah, blah, blah.

with the assistance of the dagger's official custodian, princess tamina, dastan must stop that from happening. along the way, he and tamina – a spirited, tart-tongued women's libber in a country not known for gender equality – engage in predictable verbal sparring even as they dodge arrows, flying knives, snakes (this one: i don't like! urgghhh...) and hired assassins (called, preposterously, hassansins).

i can't compare this to the video game as i am not into it.

there are, however, a few distinct pleasures. the stunt work is consistently exciting and well filmed, by the director. and the character of seso – a sudanese knife thrower with almost no dialogue who at first appears to be a very bad guy and then turns out to be a very good one – makes a welcome presence.

i wish i could say the same about seso's boss, a bandit who befriends dastan and tamina, and aids them in their quest. played with the broadest of broad humor, he's clearly meant as comic relief. but from what? does a movie this silly really need two clowns?

every sly wink and gymnastic tumble from dastan, who already looks and acts like a refugee from cirque du soleil, seems to suggest otherwise.

now see for yourself and tell me of what you think.

prince of persia: the sands of time official website