Not the total lazy cash in they'd have you believe.

Rating: 7/10 (17 December 2010)

Young Dastan, an orphan rascal is taken in by the king of the land and adopted at the start of the film, despite the fact that the dude already has two functioning sons already in Seso and Garsiv. Why does he take a shine to the kid? Because the kid stuck up for one of his similarly hard done by mates, that's why.
That kid grew up to be Jake Gyllenhall, which is lucky as he is the star of this film where he is called Dastan. Dastan and his two brothers, now adults are on a bit of a "flex our muscles" mission with the King's brother Nizam in tow in an advisory capacity. Upon intelligence received that the city they are outside has weapons they devise a plan: attack the city and take it over.
I said they were princes, not master strategists.
Dastan thinks that by flanking the city and taking the army by surprise they can minimise casualties on both sides. His brothers don't agree. He does it anyway. Success.
Near the end of the battle Dastan picks up a strange dagger and tucks it away, you better believe this is an important coincidence.
As a prize of victory the eldest brother takes the cities' Princess Tamina for himself (fair enough too, it's hard toppling peaceful neutral cities), once they arrive home to inform the King of their success he turns out to be a fair bloke and re-gifts the Princess to Dastan, thinking the eldest brother already has enough wives.
Unfortunately a present provided to Dastan for him to give to the King at a celebratory feast turns out to be poisoned, killing him instantly. All present instantly blame Dastan and want him dead. He scarpers, taking the Princess along with him.
This is where things get interesting, Princess Tamina has had her eye firmly fixed on the dagger since Dastan showed - normally chicks looking hard at Jake's beltline is commonplace - but not at a stabbing weapon. Dastan discovers that the dagger is magical, and at the press of a button rewinds time by a few moments enabling the carrier to alter events. The drawback is that the dagger is fueled by special sands in the hilt, and supplies are low.
Dastan is unsure who killed his Father and is determined to get to the bottom of the issue and clear his name. After considering his options he decides he has no alternative but to go back to the city and sort this all out. Along the way he makes enemies with an ostrich wrangler (Alfred Molina) and his knife throwing henchman.
Back in the city Dastan discovers who was really behind his Father's murder and why. He also learns that the dagger is actually a key element in the fiendish plot, this is further complicated when the Princess poaches the dagger and does a bolt.
The next hour or so sees Dastan and the Princess playing hot potato with the magical weapon, pursued at times by otherworldly assassins recruited by the bad guy, the "ostrich racing gang", and his brothers.
Dastan eventually comes to realise that in order to make things right he must save the future from happening to itself.
Enemies turn to allies and vice versa along the way, Dastan and the Princess share a series of longing glances and lingering touches and everything finishes with some pretty PG 13 action.
Before I continue in this vein, making the film sound ordinary and clichéd I must point out that all the PG action is done in quite an entertaining way, nothing is too racy or violent but the action moves along at a nice pace and Jake gets to show off the results of 3 months of personal training and watching his diet carefully.
In homage to the video game series Dastan gets to scale walls that LeBron James couldn't get up, can jump gaps and crevasses Carl Lewis wouldn't attempt even with Ben Johnson's steroids, and can kill dozens of assailants without spilling a drop of their blood, let alone his own. (Take that Kevorkian!) The plot revolves around identifying the bad guy and defeating him, with the side issues being the romantic parts and transforming doubters to allies. It is after all a Disney movie, there can only be one main bad guy and his minions, everyone else is a good guy or a confused guy; one who will eventually realise they were wrong and become a good guy.
Exactly how it came to pass that every guy with a tan is Persian and not being American means you must speak with a clipped British accent I'll never know. Suffice to say I didn't see many actors, even extras who would satisfy the visual criteria of being of Middle Eastern extraction, and the fact that everyone speaks with the same English accent is disturbing.
I guess there will be a generation of Americans that is positive that being from any other country means enunciating your words well and sounding like James Bond. No wonder they get frustrated when people have the hide to speak another language even when in their home country.
The Prince of Persia is slickly made, fairly entertaining fare with solid set pieces and a sequel ready plot It has no real (at least graphic) violence, no sex or even potty talk and innuendo.
That doesn't make it a bad movie, in fact this time it makes it a pretty good one.
Final Rating – 7 / 10. Congrats Jake, all the exercise paid off, now if you can only get anyone to watch this thing instead of the next Saw sequel or moronic spoof film.