SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS (2003)
(Animation, Adventure, Family) [PG]
Okay, here goes. So I meet Eris, the goddess of discord? She's got a major crush on me, and she invited me back to her place.
So around the year, 2000 animation studios started figuring out that 2D hand-drawn animation at least in regards to feature films was starting to fade out. For Dreamworks, this was the last, and even this one featured a combo meal of both 2D and partially CG-animated sequences. Speaking of animation, but today’s standards this thing is a bit rough, but it’s not what you would call bad. If you want bad animation you have to go to some other studio because Dreamworks cranks out quality.
In this one, the legendary Sinbad (voiced by Brad Pitt) is on a quest to find the “Book Of Peace”, which the Greek goddess of chaos named Eris stole. She wants to spread chaos all over the world because she’s just really mean like that. Part of her plan is to have Prince Proteus killed knowing he would defend Sinbad whom she framed for stealing the book. She is going to pull out all the stops to ensure that Sinbad never even gets to her to steal the book back, and her efforts include various creatures, sirens, and more.
First off, let me say overall this movie’s plot is rough. I could see if Eris needed the book to take over the human world or something like that, but she starts off the movie by stealing it, which sort of makes Sinbad’s efforts seem less possible because Eris has all the power. The reason Sinbad has to get the book is to avoid having his friend Prince Proteus die in his place so that part checks out. Outside of that and the fact that unless you are in TREASURE PLANET ocean vessels can’t fly, this thing all works very well.
One huge thing about this movie that is just epic is the pacing. There are some heartfelt dialog moments and some other scenes where Sinbad and Marina (voiced by Catherine Zeta-Jones)are bantering back and forth which makes these characters likable. We also get some really cool creature designs and the animation styles compliment each other with the 2D and computer animation interwoven. Actually never mind, that’s like 5 awesome things.
What sets this movie apart from a lot of what Dreamworks did back in the day was the cast. We even get a great vocal outing from Michelle Pfeiffer who voices Eris. Joseph Fiennes (who is maybe most famous for his role in RISEN) also delivers a stellar effort. Sadly the movie bombed and actually ended up losing $125 million dollars. The original idea was to have 7 movies with this character, each one based on a voyage of Sinbad. However, after THE ROAD TO EL DORADO also bombed losing about 19 million dollars they decided to play it safe with this effort doing more in one film than originally planned. I don’t think that added to the issues this movie had money-wise, but it probably didn’t help. It could also be that interest in Sinbad as a character seems to be waning in the past 40 years or more.
You can stream this thing now or possibly even find it cheap on DVD. It’s worth checking out and it’s also one of my favorite animated movies ever. I have to give this movie a 6 out of 7, for not doing that great of a job conveying the plot. Outside of that, everything else about this flick is epic.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF DREAMWORKS PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
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