The story of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time begins with the film's antagonist, Nizam (a perfectly cast Ben Kingsley), the brother of the king of Persia, convincing the four commanding princes of the Persian army to attack the holy city of Alamut. The four brothers are: Tus, the eldest, Farhad and Farhan, the prissy twins who refuse to do any real fighting, and Dastan, our main character (Jake Gyllenhaal), a rough around the edges soldier who is young, extremely athletic, and well liked by his troops. The Persian army descends on the heavily fortified city but is attacked from behind by Alamut warriors who have used secret passages to flank their invaders. While fighting three of these warriors, Dastan is forced onto a burning Persian catapult, and accidentally launched over the city walls. He manages to break his fall using a series of canvas awnings and begins to hack his way through the city to open the city gates for his troops.
His fighting style is described in the script as medieval parkour. He uses his surroundings to bounce, back flip, and swing his way into a tactical advantage. He manages to open the city gates and continues through the fortress until he is confronted in a narrow passageway by a heavy soldier and his armored horse. Dastan manages to run up a wall and back flip onto the horse, and in a horseback fight, Dastan pulls the warrior from his mount and kills him as they tumble to the ground. He finds an exquisitely made dagger filled with glowing sand on the belt of his enemy and pockets it, unknowing that he is being watched from above by the beautiful princess of Alamut, Tamina (Gemma Arterton). The city is conquered and the Persian army returns home with their plunder.
Upon returning to Persia, the sons present their father with gifts from the sacred city. Dastan gives his father a royal robe, but the robe has been poisoned, and it sears itself to the flesh of the king, killing him. The guards accuse Dastan of murdering his father, but he slips away with the help of Tamina, who allowed herself to get captured after the siege and has disguised herself as a servant girl. They escape the city on horseback and finally lose their pursuant after jumping off a sheer cliff and allowing their horse to carry them down the steep embankment. They ride to safety and make camp in the desert.
Tamina constantly eyes the precious dagger that is still tucked into Dastan's belt, and makes repeated and unsuccessful attempts to pluck it from him while he isn't looking. Finally, she attacks him and the dagger flies away from Dastan and they both lunge for it. Dastan reaches the dagger first, but accidentally presses a secret button on the side of the hilt. As he does, the world warps around him. He watches, dazed, as the events of the fight are played out in front of him in reverse. He's traveling backwards through time. He releases his grasp on the dagger and the world rights itself. He has reversed time to the point immediately before Tamina's attack, but he is so confused by what has just happened to him that he fails to parry her first swipe and it mortally slashed across the chest. As blood fills his shirt and the life ebbs out of him, Tamina reveals herself as the princess of Alamut. Before she can grab the dagger, Dastan uses his last breath to grab the hilt and once more press the button. Time reverses again and Dastan finds himself in the exact same moment before the attack, however this time he is more than prepared and instinctively parries her attack and flips her into the sand. She apologizes and confesses that she is trying to steal the dagger, but she lies and tells Dastan that she is a mere servant girl. Dastan, however, is fully aware of what has happened before he used the dagger and uses his knowledge that Tamina is actually a princess to torment her by making her polish his shoes and gather firewood as penance for her foolish actions.
They continue their journey across the desert. Dastan plans to return to Alamut to confront his eldest brother Tus, who has stayed behind in the city to search for hidden armories that they suspect Alamut has been using to supply Persian enemies. On the way, they slip by Persian scouting parties who are searching for them by disguising themselves as shepherds. After choosing to travel through a mountain pass, the two stumble across the nomad camp of Farood (Alfred Molina), and after being caught attempting to steal from them, Dastan lies and says that he is a simple student, and that the hooded Tamina is his mute cousin Bukbuk. The generous Farood forgives him and allows them to travel with his family to Alamut.
On the way to Alamut, the roving camp stops through a trading village. During the night, a gypsy in Farood's camp steals the dagger from Dastan and pawns it off in the market. Dastan attempts to negotiate for the dagger with the trader and finally settles on the price as well as a dance from Tamina. She immediately objects, but has no other choice. Dastan settles in to amusingly watch Tamina embarrass herself. However, it seems that their Persian pursuers are staying in the same inn. Dastan slinks into a corner to avoid detection as Tamina awkwardly steps onto the stage. He urges her to dance to avoid suspicion from Garsiv, but Tamina sees this as an opportunity and seductively dances towards Dastan and slips the dagger from his belt and into her scarves. Unfortunately her dancing has attracted the attention of Garsiv who captures her and takes the dagger into his own possession. The evil Nazim arrives and reveals that he has been search of the dagger for quite sometime, and it becomes clear that he convinced the brothers to attack Alamut simply so he could obtain it. After seeing that Dastan had somehow obtained it, he framed him for the king's murder by poisoning the magical robe. Nizam plans to use the dagger to reverse time all the way back to a moment in his childhood where he saved his older brother from being killed by a wild boar - making him the rightful heir to the throne and ruler of Persia.
Dastan watches Tamina's capture while remaining unnoticed. Later that evening he manages to free Tamina from her captors, but is unable to retrieve the dagger. They escape and follow Nizam and his Persian soldiers back to Alamut. They sneak back in with the help of the gypsy Farood. Tamina is shocked at the destruction of Alamut, and even more upset when she discovers a party of slaves digging near an ornate fountain under the supervising eye of Nizam. She tells Dastan that at this rate, Nizam will reach the hourglass of time in less than a day. She explains that the hourglass of time contains a magical substance known as the sands of time, which are capable of controlling the flow of time. The dagger is the only blade that can penetrate the magical glass, and the two of them set off to steal the dagger and reverse what has been done. Dastan manages to find the location of the dagger and pilfer it from under the nose of several dozen guards. Tamina takes him to a series of tunnels and leads him toward the hourglass.
They reach a gaping chasm and this is where we get the prince at his finest. He runs along the wall and jumps toward the other wall, performing acrobatics along his path across the deep gorge as spikes pop up underneath him. He lands confidently on the opposite platform, but Tamina is trapped on the other side. She tells him he must go on alone and warns him not to step on any black stones or to lay a hand on the symbol of their sun god. Dastan makes his way toward the hourglass chamber, but the task of avoiding the black stones in his path becomes more and more difficult. Finally, he accidentally steps on one and more classic Prince of Persia goodness happens. He dodges a vertically swinging blade, but as he does he presses two more black stones, and two horizontal blades slide from the wall. He dodges each pitfall but in the process continues to trigger more traps. He jumps, ducks, slides, and back flips his way out of harms way and finally finds himself standing before the massive hourglass. He plunges the dagger into the middle of the hourglass and fills the hilt up with magical sand.
On the way back, Dastan accidentally touches a large stone lion, the symbol of the Alamut sun god. The chamber begins to collapse around him as blades slice at him from every wall. He escapes and reaches the chasm, attempting a running jump across the gap but it is too large, and he tumbles down towards the spikes. But as his chest is about to be impaled, he presses the button on the dagger and rewinds time. This attempt, he avoids touching the lion, and he continues through the passage back to Tamina. However, the destruction caused by Nizam's workers is flooding the chamber. Dastan returns with a refilled dagger as water fills the entire chamber, but Dastan and Tamina escape through a hole in the wall. In the ensuing escape sequence, Dastan is forced to rewind time in order for the two of them to escape. After some heroic and impossible acrobatics, Tamina and the prince evade their pursuers and set off to meet Dastan's older brother Tus and inform him of Nizam's treachery.
Tamina shows Dastan a secret passage into the royal bathing chamber where Tus is and while discussing everything that has happened, they kiss. Dastan tries to talk about a future with Tamina but she stops him saying that only those who have been baptized in sacred fountain of Alamut are allowed to marry the princess, but as it has been destroyed by Nizam's excavation, Dastan can never marry her. The dejected Dastan then turns toward a secret passageway to meet his brother.
Dastan emerges from the steam and confronts his brother. But Nizam has already turned Tus against him, and Tus calls for his guards. Frustrated, Dastan uses the dagger to rewind time and try another speech, but this argument also fails, and Dastan is forced to rewind time once again. He only has enough sand left in the dagger for one more rewind, so this one has to count. He emerges and once again Tus calls his guards. This time, Dastan pleads with his older brother, telling him the secret of the dagger and about Nizam's plot to use it to gain the throne. In a desperate attempt, Dastan tells his brother that the only way for him to understand is to witness it for himself, he explains how to operate the dagger, and in my favorite part of the entire story, he plunges the dagger into his own chest. His older brother cries out, but Dastan is already dead. Tus walks toward his dead brother and pulls the dagger from his chest examining it, but instead of pressing the button, he just drops the dagger to the ground. The shocked soldiers prepare to remove the dead prince from the chamber when Tus changes his mind, and grabs the dagger, pressing the hilt in the way Dastan instructed and rewinding time to right before Dastan sacrificed himself. Tus is just as shocked as Dastan first was when he used the dagger, but manages to stop his younger brother from once again committing suicide. The now convinced Tus and the young prince head out to apprehend Nizam.
As they confront Nizam, his guards kill Tus and a swarm of soldiers capture Dastan and take him to prison. He manages to escape once again with the assistance of the gypsy Farood and takes off to rescue Tamina. He confronts Garsiv and the two warriors battle fiercely until Dastan eventually kicks him over a cliff wall. He then goes to stop Nizam from using the hourglass and arrives right as Nizam is about to plunge the dagger in and the two of them battle. Nizam expertly uses two scimitars, but Dastan finally knocks one of them from his hand. Nazim is taken aback at first, but then tricks Dastan into a false sense of security and stabs him in the stomach with a small hidden blade in his sleeve. He leaves Dastan for dead and walks back toward the hourglass. As he is about to plunge the dagger in, Dastan dives for the dagger. Both of their hands grasp the hilt as the metal of the dagger pierces the sands of time. Time begins to violently swirl backwards, with Dastan and Nazim both trapped in the middle of the maelstrom. We watch through the swirls of sand as the entire story is played out backwards. Dastan finally manages to pull the blade from the glass and the two find themselves in the middle of the story's opening siege of Alamut.
Since they were both holding the dagger, they keep full memory of the events that have taken place. They rush at each other and clash swords once again. The army looks on in disbelief as two of their superiors fight one another. Dastan and Nazim are both desperately yelling out to explain what is happening, but the fight continues. Dastan once again knocks one of Nizam's scimitars from his hand, this time expecting to be stabbed by the hidden hidden dagger. He parries the attack and turns the dagger back on Nizam. As the sorcerer lies dying on the ground, Dastan convinces Tus to call off the attack on the city. The story closes with Dastan and his brothers as guests inside the city of Alamut, enjoying the hospitality of the city. Dastan eyes Tamina, who is unaware of the love story that had previously taken place. As he stares at her, he "accidentally" trips and falls into the sacred fountain of Alamut - an accidental baptism.
Note: End of Spoilers
Script Review: Jerry Bruckheimer's Epic Prince of Persia Movie
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