Two thumbs up indeed for an excellent game.
In terms of the movie, it was translated very well. The game has you play as the Prince (who is unnamed (unlike the movie). The Prince, along with his father King Shahraman, invade and conquer an opposing Maharajah's city. There, the Prince finds two of the Maharajah's valuable artifacts, the Sands of Time (concealed within an Hourglass) and the Dagger of Time, which can be used to rewind and/or slow down time. However, the Prince is tricked into releasing the Sands of Time and turning whoever comes into contact with it into sand monsters. Along with the Maharajah's daughter, Farah, the Prince must now stop the main villain of the game, the Maharajah's Vizier, from using the Sands of Time to take over the world.
Unlike other typical platformer games, this one has the Prince using 'parkour' (as the movie calls it), which includes running up walls, running across a wall to another platform, and so on. This is the best part of the game because it's not that hard to do and let's face it, it looks so damn cool.
In terms of everything else, they are, shall I say, perfect. The graphics are excellent (heck, pretty much any movie focusing on environments like this are going to look good), the story is well written, and the gameplay is solid. Is this a game to reccommend? Definitely. While it does get a bit annoying if you're someone like me who failed a couple times in this game before getting it right (no one's perfect), it is pretty funny to hear the Prince saying "No no, that's not what happened" everytime you die.
Do I have any complaints with this game? Well, I have to admit that I wasn't a huge fan of the fact that the game focuses on the Prince putting away his sword after every battle. It kind of got annoying because you can't skip it. So, here's my advice. I'm not sure if this works, but if you press X (or whatever button you use to put away your sword depending on the system) as soon as you beat the last guy in the area, you won't have to deal with the annoying cutscene. Another thing relating to skipping something is that you can't skip the first big cutscene, and no I'm not talking about the fmv, but that screen at after the cutscene. After starting a new game file, I figured out what this was. If you press a unique set of buttons (I think it is L, R, and Start), you go back to the main menu of the game. I realized this after doing this TWICE. Geez, it would be nice if I could skip that cutscene if something like that happens. It ain't a real problem, but if you've played the game before, being able to skip that scene would be nice.
But, in all honesty, this may be one of the best Gamecube games ever. It's an extremely well made game, just like the movie that it inspired (I know I said that earlier in this review, but that movie was really good). If you're someone like me who saw the movie and wanted to get a Prince of Persia game, this is the one to get.