Jake Gyllenhaal stars as the daring Prince Dastan in the action-adventure tale Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. (Andrew Cooper/Disney Enterprises, Inc./Jerry Bruckheimer, Inc.)

The fact that Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is opening on the same weekend as the Abu Dhabi-set Sex and the City 2 got me thinking about mash-ups.

Prince of Persia is a confused compromise between an Arabian Nights fable and a frenetic action flick that's as lumpy as a camel's back.

Imagine, if you will, Jake Gyllenhaal's buff boy-toy Prince Dastan matching wits with Kim Cattrall's wily cougar Samantha Jones. Or Gemma Arterton's Princess Tamina and Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw going on a shopping spree for Manolo Blahnik sandals at the local bazaar. And there are a few things Cynthia Nixon’s Miranda Hobbs could teach Ben Kingsley’s power-crazed Uncle Nizam about letting your work dominate your life.

As summer blockbusters go, it could be huge. For the first time, you’d have a movie that appeals to 15-year-old boys and thirtysomething women!

These are the things you find yourself daydreaming about while watching a mediocre adventure like Prince of Persia. After spinning Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride into endless box-office gold, super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer must think he can turn anything into a hit movie. If so, this picture may be his comeuppance.

Based on Jordan Mechner's venerable video game, this Bruckheimer-Disney co-production could have offered us some fun sword-and-sandals escapism along the lines of The Thief of Baghdad, or even Disney’s own animated Aladdin. Instead, it's a confused compromise between an Arabian Nights fable and a frenetic action flick that's as lumpy as a camel's back.

Prince Dastan (Gyllenhaal) is an ex-guttersnipe in sixth-century Persia who was elevated to the position of prince after he was adopted by a benevolent king (Ronald Pickup). Now, the king is getting old and his sons, Tus (Richard Coyle) and Garsiv (Toby Kebbell), are flexing their muscles. At the urgings of their devious uncle (Kingsley, wearing serious black eyeliner), they decide to pre-emptively invade the holy city of Alamut because it's suspected of harbouring a cache of weapons (where have we heard that excuse before?). Dastan has misgivings, but leads the attack for his brothers and acquits himself heroically.

The only weapon he discovers in Alamut, however, is an engraved dagger with a glass hilt, containing magical sand that has the power of reversing time. After he's framed for the murder of the king, Dastan flees, taking with him the dagger and its tenacious royal guardian, the fiery Tamina (Arterton). Pursued by Uncle Nizam, the prince and princess pick up a pair of unlikely allies in Seso (Steve Toussaint), a deadly African knife thrower, and Amar (Alfred Molina), a crooked capitalist sheik with a penchant for ostrich racing.

For a while, I entertained myself by wondering whether the screenwriters were trying to sneak in a commentary on the invasion of Iraq, with Tus, the dead king’s none-too-bright heir, as a Bush figure and Kingsley’s Nizam as a purring, Persian Dick Cheney. And the Hassansins, the stealthy assassins in Nizam’s employ, are clearly based on Hassan-i Sabbah’s legendary team, whose techniques inspired the CIA. And what about Molina's greedy sheik, constantly griping about taxes like some Tea Party Republican?

Leaving aside political parallels, I then began to wonder why fine young talents like Jake Gyllenhaal turn coarse when they do these blockbusters. We know the guy is a good actor from his other films (Brokeback Mountain, Zodiac), but you’d never be able to tell it from his performance here. His hair long and lank (it must be that desert air), Gyllenhaal spends most of the movie flashing a roguish grin in a vain effort to channel Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn. What happens to these young actors when they bulk up and take on action roles? Does the muscle also go to their heads?

Prince Dastan and Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) share a perilous moment in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. (Andrew Cooper/Disney Enterprises, Inc./Jerry Bruckheimer, Inc.)

But you have to give Gyllenhaal points for doing a convincing English accent, evidently to match the movie's other English-accented ancient Persians. Are we in the Middle East here, or the middle of Trafalgar Square? Arterton's princess sounds as plummy as a young Julie Andrews. Molina, meanwhile, is just a garrulous cockney gangster hidden in the turban and robes of a Bedouin.

Actually, Molina’s robust comic turn as the ostrich-snogging Amar is the best thing about the movie, recalling the amusing characterizations that have kept the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise afloat. Arterton, too, is enjoyable in her early scenes as the haughty, headstrong princess, although she and Gyllenhaal make better adversaries than lovers.

In the Molina and Arterton-Gyllenhaal scenes you see glimmers of the type of character-driven films director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco) used to make. I had a hard time, though, recognizing the work of John Seale, Oscar-winning cinematographer of The English Patient, even though both that movie and this one were shot in North Africa. At any rate, the camerawork in Prince of Persia is all chopped to bits by attention-deficit editing that tries – and fails – to emulate the thrills of gaming. All that lightning-fast movement is exciting when you're controlling a character's actions, but it's a boring blur when you're just a spectator.

Gyllenhaal apparently trained in the French sport of parkour so he could climb walls, leap from rooftops and do the other acrobatic feats associated with the prince. You can't tell, though, because all the stunts look phony and Newell indulges in so much Matrix-y slow motion that it becomes a joke. And, despite an arsenal's worth of cool-looking scimitars, there isn’t a decent sword duel in the whole picture. Today's filmmakers ought to go back and look at classics like The Crimson Pirate and The Court Jester to see how much fun you can have with just a couple of deftly wielded blades.

As for Bruckheimer, he should seriously consider my Sex and the City proposal. If nothing else, I'm sure Carrie and the gals could give Ben Kingsley some advice on applying makeup.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time opens May 28.

Martin Morrow writes about the arts for CBC News.