From the producer of 'Pirates of Caribbean' and the director of 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' comes a true roller coaster ride, 'POP: Sands of time' scores high on the entertainment quota but fails big time on the logic and the much expected CGI areas.
Jake Gyllenhaal plays 'Dastan', character etched out of the video game series by just giving it a name. Well, Dastan is an orphan who is adopted by the king of persia seeing his brave acts. The story goes like this, Dastan and his two foster brothers decide to invade the holy city of Alimut on the say of Nizam (Ben Kingsley) which is against the king's wishes. But Dastan goes on to find Nizam's secret interests during his pursuit of the city and there starts the twists and turns and some high action adrenaline here and there.
Dastan goes on to meet Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) who rules the holy city and they join hands to save the kingdom.
Everyone seems to accept the fact that has been going around in the ears of persia that Princess Tamina is the most beautiful ruler ever. (But i seriously don't accept it at all! )
The main weapon that everyone is after in this movie is the dagger. Whoever releases the sand turns back time and that person can do whatever he/she wants. The logic for all this can be exempted but there are a few places where no one would attempt to digest.
For example, the usage of the word 'entrepreneur' by Alfred Molina (The famous Doc-Oc from Spiderman 2), I seriously doubt such words were used in those times.
Even after digesting the fact that people in persia could speak fluent english, one definitely cannot digest the dialogues they spoke which consisted of advanced english verbose.
The CGI fails to raise the 'oohs! and aaws!' as one would have expected fresh after seeing the trailers. Given the money, i think they could definitely have worked more on that.
The music by Harry Gregson-Williams reminds us of the inevitable 'Pirates of Caribbean' in a lot of places but he does deserve credit for other pieces which seemed original.
Cinematography by John Seale was brilliant although there were a few scenes which were shown particularly for showing his presence as a crew member.
The Stunts were breathtaking and the recent trend of movies banking on parkour stunts might prove to be entertaining for a while but that will need some innovation in the near future too.
The Screenplay was slick at places and pretty awkward and illogical at many other places.
The Plot cannot be criticized because its video game adaptation and leaves much less scope for innovation but the producer and director should be lauded for bringing out a decent summer entertainer.
A viewer can completely enjoy the movie if he/she totally forgets the logic part.
The main negative of the movie comes in bad CGI in a lot of places (brought the memories of S.S.Rajamouli's Magadheera) and extremely wonderful CGI in a lot other places.
On the whole the movie is a mixture of both positives and negatives and though the percentage of the latter is more, the movie leaves a 'feel-good' impression at the end.
Rating: 3/5
POP: Sands of time - Entertaining!
