"Prince of Persia" trailer debuts

Here it is, your first chance to see Jake Gyllenhaal with long hair and an English accent.

Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer have released the full theatrical trailer for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, due out May 28, 2010. The movie is based on the popular video game series, and the story follows the hero Dastan as he tries to make up for accidentally unleashing the Sands of Time, which ends up turning a kingdom into ghost town and he'll do so with the help of a lovely princess (Gemma Arterton of "Quantum of Solace") and something called the Dagger of Time which allows him to manipulate time ... yea, you get it. Fantasy shit.

The trailer looks visually outstanding. The CGI looks top-notch and the action sequences, under direction of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire's Mike Newell, look exciting to say the least.

I think the most interesting part, which I didn't know, was that Disney and Bruckheimer were actually trying to make this their "Pirates" replacement. Disney rarely slaps its name on just anything action-oriented and that must mean they're trying to bring the "Pirates" audience back to the theaters during the beginning of the summer season no less. There's even some witty banter attempted between Gyllenhaal and Arterton which fell flat in the trailer.

Let's be real, though. If you're going to go see Prince of Persia next year expecting the same witty adventure experience you got out of the "Pirates" movies, than you deserve to be set up for disappointment. There's no Johnny Depp and Gyllenhaal has little to know comedy experience to my knowledge. I'm sure Disney knows exactly what it's doing. They're thinking "who cares if we deceive the public into thinking this will be like "Pirates," we'll make more money and just deal with the potentially negative word of mouth from the dumb people who see it thinking it will be." It's smart, I just wasn't expecting that move.

Still, the trailer looks promising for action/adventure fans and it might make for some quality escapism a couple weeks after Iron Man 2 hits theaters.

View the at trailer IGN Video here