Persian Prince

My wife got me Prince of Persia recently, about which I was a bit curious.

I had played the original game (back in 1990 or '91), but none of the subsequent follow-ups. I really wasn't sure how they were going to make a movie out of it.

It did live up to expectations in visuals; they were very nice. And, for that, I was definitely glad to have gotten it on Blu-Ray. As far as the quality of the movie itself, though, it was about as expected.

That is to say, it was ok. Reasonably entertaining, little to no depth, and as good a grasp of history as you'd expect from a Disney movie. Seriously, Alamut was founded in 246AD, while the Persian empire dates from approximately the fifth to third centuries BC. And the Hashishayun, the assassins, didn't get there until the late eleventh century AD (Judith Tarr, incidentally, wrote a fantastic novel centered around the assassins called Alamut). And it was only under the assassins that Alamut was considered holy. Nor was it anywhere near as grand as portrayed.

Yes, it looked quite impressive in the movie, but it was not a huge place. It was mostly just a fortress, not a center of civilization.

And as far as adapting the game; it had a few nods to the original game, but not a whole lot.

Overall, I'd rate it as fair. It isn't worth going out of your way to see, but the visuals might make it worth catching it if it's convenient. Oh, and Alanis had a nice song for the closing credits (though I could have sworn it was Tori Amos).