'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time': Overloaded with special effects and fairy-tale gobbledygook

"Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" is really big. There are hordes of galloping warriors, caverns that swallow entire palaces, oceans of undulating dunes that dwarf human figures on the horizon and vast desert cityscapes that undoubtedly strained terabytes of hard drive. And let's not forget Jake Gyllenhaal's colossal pecs, biceps and flowing locks framing a big, bashful smile.

Despite the focus on scope and scale, this big picture feels pretty darn small.

The movie is based on a popular video game, which partly accounts for a trajectory designed with frantic bursts of vigorous play. For such volume of adventure, there's not much take-away in the overload of noisy action, numbing effects and pseudo-dramatic fanfare.

The filigreed story matches the overbearing production design in its bewildering details and gloomy muddle of fairy-tale gobbledygook. Gyllenhaal is Prince Dastan, an adopted son of righteous King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup) and nephew to the inscrutable Nizam (Ben Kingsley, whose screen evilness can again be measured by the complexity of his facial hair).

When their father is murdered during a triumphant battle celebration, Dastan's warrior brothers (Toby Kebbell and Richard Coyle) suddenly turn against him. In a blaze of confused absurdity, he flees the towering Babel-like city of Alamut with vanquished Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) aiding the escape.

With them is the sacred "Dagger of Time," which Princess Tamina is sworn to protect. Its crystal hilt contains magic sand and operates like a PlayStation controller with a red button that unleashes clouds of golden glitter and reverses time for a few minutes. Needless to say, the dagger becomes a powerful MacGuffin leading to much misfortune for Dastan and Tamina. Between their bickering and inevitable romance, many obstacles must be overcome, including a supernatural cabal of creepy assassins, suspect stores of swords and scimitars, treachery over royal blood lines and treason against the desert gods themselves.

It's all a brooding mash-up of abrupt transitions, narrative trickery, wildly exaggerated digital effects and flash cuts that destroy the acrobatic impact of complex running-and-jumping parkour stunt sequences. It's no wonder everyone seems to be having such a lousy time. The one exception is Alfred Molina, who hams it up as a renegade sheik and proto tea partyer who loathes taxes, big government and bureaucracy but loves a good ostrich race.

Disney and producer impresario Jerry Bruckheimer are hoping to create a franchise on par with the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series. Though the "Pirates" episodes suffered from a similar abundance of excess, the "Prince" spectacle falls short in ways less comic, more pointless and just not very much fun.

Ted Fry: tedfry@hotmail.com