Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

In the spirit of the Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy, Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films transport you to the mystical lands of Persia for this wildly entertaining, epic action-adventure. It's a race against time when a rogue prince (Jake Gyllenhaal) reluctantly teams up with a rival princess (Gemma Arterton) to safeguard a magical dagger that gives its possessor the power to reverse time and rule the world. Filled with death-defying escapes and unexpected twists at every turn - Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time is a fun-filled adventure that will keep your pulse pounding long after the credits end.

Jake Gyllenhaal's doe eyes and bulging biceps will make some hearts flutter in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Dastan (Gyllenhaal), adopted prince of the Persian empire, must flee into the desert when accused of murdering his royal father--but a glass-handled dagger he found as loot from a captured city turns out to hold powerful time-manipulating magic. Not only is he pursued by his vengeful brothers, his scheming uncle (Ben Kingsley, Sexy Beast), and a strange cabal of assassins, but a princess/priestess named Tamina (Gemma Arterton, Quantum of Solace) wants the dagger back and will kill Dastan if she has to. Prince of Persia wants to be a rollicking adventure along the lines of Pirates of the Caribbean. Unfortunately, it's hampered by clumsy dialogue and hard-to-follow action sequences, with choppy editing that wrecks the flow of the parkour-inspired stunts. But the production design is extravagant and every time Alfred Molina (Spiderman 2) appears as a greedy sheik the movie gets a delightful jolt of energy. Gyllenhaal doesn't have much to work with--Dastan is a fairly generic hero--and whoever designed his hair should have been fired on the first day, but his lazy charm comes through and carries him through the movie. --Bret Fetzer