Not as bad as people say it is

Rating: 6/10 (1 June 2010)

First off I didn't play the games so I went in with no knowledge of the storyline. Secondly I'd taken the liberty of reading the IMDb reviews and after separating the AstroTurf from butt hurt gamers, I went in with modest expectations.
These modest expectations were largely fulfilled, or one could say my expectations were so low that I was actually entertained. Lets be straight, pretty much every movie based on a game has stunk. I've seen such classics as Doom, Hit-man and Max Payne get absolutely ruined by studios who never played the games, so perhaps it was fortunate for me not to have been a fan of the PoP games.
Essentially what Prince of Persia: Sands of Time boils down to is Pirates-of-the-Caribbean in ancient Persia and I suspect that's what they were aiming for, nothing like beating the franchise to death in another new franchise. Prince Dastan is easily a stand-in for Will Turner,a street urchin wanting to be something more than his low-born background. There's the high born damsel-in-distress Princess Tamina, clearly projecting the aristocratic Elizabeth Swan, only thing is Tamina spends a lot of her time whining which actually makes Lizbeth rather more tolerable if you re-watch Pirates. Then there's mysticism, magic, supernatural elements and a creation myths thrown in regarding a magical dagger created when a young pure maiden made a plea to the gods who were angry and wanted to kill humanity with a sandstorm and a dagger that can turn back time.... oh man this fecal matter is BANANAS! This convoluted stuff certainly reeks of all that Aztec gold curse cum sea god-imprisoned-in-mortal-form who loves tentacle Davy Jones from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Is all that wrong? Well it wouldn't be except the direction of the action sequences are so familiar that even the addition of park four sequences from the games adds little that one hasn't already seen, assuming you've already watched the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
In the end, I was mildly entertained, certainly at least more entertained than Clash of the Titans or Percy Jackson. In both those movies, I came out wondering, "What the fudge was that bovine excrement?" With Prince of Persia, I came out thinking,"Rather tasty but could have used less sugar."