Jake Gyllenhaal and Adrien Brody surprise the critics - and PoP 2 (the WDW home movie version)

Now that Prince of Persia has finally left the theatres round here - after a very long run - I've been making up for lost time and seeing movies as if I haven't seen any movie but one for the last 2 and a half months (which I haven't). I went to see Predator today and it gave me the kind of shock that maybe PoP gave to some people who weren't as familiar with Jake Gyllenhaal as we are - ie, Adrien Brodey, Academy Award winner for The Pianist, pumped to the heavens. The last time I saw Brody he looked as if he'd snap if a breath of wind hit him sideways.



Jake and Adrien have both shown that actors are more than ready to reshape their bodies for a role and, if we are surprised by the results, that could be because we're not so familiar with the actor or actress, just seeing them when a movie hits the screens. There was a great deal of surprise surrounding Jake's transformation into Dastan, but that seemed to be mainly because critics remembered key roles in Jake's career - Donnie Darko, Jack Twist, Robert Graysmith. In all three, Jake was either very young or slender or both. Suddenly, to some, Jake became big and buff and yet, as someone approaching 30, who's now grown into their body and is extremely athletic and fit, it shouldn't be a surprise to see what Jak can do with this body of his. After all we've seen it before - we'll see it again.






Prince of Persia 2

I'm sure I'm not alone in missing Jake. However, we must make do while Jake catches up on his holiday reading and enjoys local produce. It was good then to get not one but four Dastans in the post this morning. I ordered them 6 months ago and so I thought they might not show up. I put them through their paces and re-enacted some key scenes from PoP.

Firstly I put the Dastans through their paces - labelled to avoid confusion.




Prince Dastan once more took on the vipers.


And struggled with the sandglass...


Finally, it had to be the one on one struggle with the chief Hasanssin who could blend into the desert like a puff of sand.


Let's hope Jake reappears soon...

Talking of movies, you can read my - spoilery - review of Inception on MovieBrit.

Pictures from IHJ, IMDb and WDW.