Bruckheimer needs to take a course on making his plots less convoluting.

Rating: 4/10 (25 May 2010)

It seems all that Bruckheimer is doing nowadays is copying all his old movies, renaming a few characters and plot elements here and there, and re-releasing the movie under a different name. This time, he's moulding the underrated Prince of Persia video game franchise (a classic game franchise BTW) into his stock Pirates of the Caribbean script.
The plot is your standard early-90s video game plot. Orphan boy (Gylenhaal) becomes King Sharaman's (Pickup) prince, much to the dismay of the King's brother (Kingsley). Kingsley, intent on seizing power, seeks to retrieve "plot device" from guardian, the guardian in this being a hot, young Princess (Arterton). Prince becomes attracted to Princess and sends Prince on a mission to retrieve said "plot device" by venturing across Persia (which seems to translate to Middle Earth). In this case, the plot device is a crude time machine that's shaped like a dagger (I wonder how much Bruckheimer wasted on the prop department for that?)
This film is litigiously similar to the first Pirates of the Caribbean. The characters are the same, the story is the same, the fights are the same (only the clothes are different in this movie). This film's Sparrow is played by Molina, this film's Bo'sun is played by Toussaint, Gylenhaal and Arterton obviously transpose Bloom and Knightley, the three-Sparrows scene is now an ostrich race. The film includes a Nazgul-inspired hassansin force, and contains at least one Indiana Jones like booby trap scene that makes you want to scream "Only the penitent man will pass". This is where Bruckheimer's strength lies, his wide assortment of likable characters filled with humour and chemistry (albeit a little gimmicky), and he places them in enjoyable adventure scenes which thrill and make you laugh.
Hampering the movie is what hampers all of Bruckheimer's recent work. He has no clue on how to glue his plot ideas into a coherent storyline. Remember Sparrow repeatedly siding with Norrington then double crossing him in Pirates? This film is so packed with such double crosses / betrayals / alliances with the enemy that by its halfway, you have no idea who is the good guy and who is the bad. But who cares as long as there is sword fighting going on? (A: all non-Bruckheimer fans) The effect these double crosses have on the plot makes it so convoluted, that you might as well give up on the story by the time they reach the Mount Doom scene. Bruckheimer tries to make up for it by having plot dumps every 10 minutes (exacerbating the plot convolution), but he now has to reduce the segway scenes to a single panorama, then the 3-5 minute scene (lots of scenes don't help the convoluted plot).
Bruckheimer needs to learn to cull his films more. If a scene is making the plot convoluted, you should cut it, not try to fit it in between two scenes which break the continuity. Not every scene has to make it into the final movie. You'll also make the movie shorter (quite important because Bruckheimer films are among the longest).
Another convoluted film which will entertain Bruckheimer fans, and fill his bank account again.