Directed by Mike Newell. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina, Steve Toussaint, Toby Kebbell, Richard Coyle, Ronald Pickup 12A cert, gen release, 116 min

OH, HEAVENS. Spare us another high-minded political film. Summer is coming, and we want to watch pretty girls leaping off balconies while handsome men poke bad guys with sabres. These hectoring left-wing diatribes really are too much.

The preceding comments are meant only partially in jest. With the exception of Paul Greengrass's Green Zone, no other film has engaged as directly with the illegality of the war in Iraq as does this videogame adaption.

The absurdly overcomplicated plot has something to do with a Middle Eastern power electing to invade a neighbouring nation because it believes that country is harbouring “weapons forges”. It later transpires, however, that the arms factories never existed, and that an evil general (good old Ben Kingsley) dreamt them up to facilitate his imperialist ambitions.

Do you get it, kids? Do you? You didn't encounter that class of geo-political nuance in Super Mario Bros: The Movie.

Anyway, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Timeactually turns out to be rather good fun. Jake Gyllenhaal (speaking in perfectly achieved, but rather puzzling Estuary English) plays the titular prince, a commoner adopted by the king, who makes common cause with a lovely princess (the suddenly ubiquitous Gemma Arterton) against Kingsley's cackling cad.

As fans of later versions of the game, an addictive platform classic, will already have guessed, the two heroes encounter a dagger that, when treated in a certain fashion, can turn back time. Aware that overuse of such a device could make the action sequences absurd, the writers render it unworkable for much of the film.

Indeed, there isn't much of the game left in this Prince of Persia. Every now and then Gylenhaal runs up a wall. From time to time he leaps across a cavern. That's about it.

For most of its duration, the film romps along like a much livelier, much less pretentious, much less annoying version of the same producer's Pirates of the Caribbeanfranchise.

Indeed, if you walked out disappointed that Ridley Scott's Robin Hoodwasn't a bit jauntier, Prince of Persiacould be your only man.