Golden Voyage of Sinbad

With that out of the way, I will now begin the review of THIS Sinbad film.

This begins on a sunny day, when Sinbad's crew spots a little gargoyle monster flying over the ship, carrying a piece of gold. One man shoots the gold and Sinbad takes it, despite warnings of its evil, and wears it around his neck. That night, he has dreams of a woman with an eye on her hand, a man in dark clothing, the golden item, and the flying monster. There is also a storm that night, allegedly brought on by the bad luck of the gold. On shore the next day, Sinbad is confronted by Koura, an evil magician who owns the gargoyle creature and wants the gold piece back from Sinbad. The legendary sailor is chased into a keep, where he greets the golden-helmeted Vizier, whose face was burned by Koura's fire. He explains that the gold piece is one of the three that form a map to a place where they must be brought to recieve three powers. Koura listens in via one of the little monsters and hatches a plan to follow Sinbad and the Vizier to the island. Sinbad also picks up a lazy drunk and a slave girl who he sets free, who just happens to have an eye tatoo on her hand.

I'll let it be known now: aside from the homonculi (the flying gargoyle things), there really aren't any stop-motion monsters for a good 30-40 minutes, when the statue at the front of Sinbad's ship is controlled by Koura. The plot holds your attention throughout this, but just barely, as due to the complexities apparent, like the Vizier's face and Koura's aging with each spell he casts.

The acting is... it's ok. Nothing great, but not noticably bad. There are some very cheesy moments, mostly involving the above mentioned drunk whom Sinbad is paid to take on the ship as a sailor. The writing isn't all that great either, but it lasts enough for the stop-motion effects to take over. What I'm saying is, you won't be bored, but you'll be pretty near close.

As for the monsters, they're up to Harryhausen's usual calibur. This movie's grandiose feature is the six-armed Kali statue. The fight between the statue and the sailors is very impressive, especially with how the arms are constantly moving and fluctuating with the movements of the swordsmen. There's still a good 30 minutes to go after that, which are mostly taken up in pursuit of a cycloptean centaur who takes the slave girl away into the caverns of Marabia to eat, as she has been sacrificed by the natives due to the single eye on her palm.

The centaur is probably one of the few Harryhausen monsters (perhaps the only one) that I found mildly disturbing. It looks like it should have some form of speech, and it even sounds as though it could, but it makes the noise of monsters, as if it's a human shouting and screaming like an animal. It's a very creepy sound, and while Harryhausen wasn't responsible for it, he puts it to decent effect.

The centaur battles a griffin later on. The Vizier notes it that the two beasts had been battling eternally, symbolizing the endless struggle between good and evil. They had fought before, and the only reaosn the result changed from the two walking away neither winner or loser was because of the interference of humans.

This is a decent fim, but only worth buying if you are a Harryhausen fan. The DVD doesn't have many features compared to certain other Harryhausen DVDs (*cough*7thVoyage*cough*) but it's better than nothing, which is what many DVDs offer. The second best of the three Harryhausen Sinbad films.

-Escushion

With that out of the way, I will now begin the review of THIS Sinbad film.

This begins on a sunny day, when Sinbad's crew spots a little gargoyle monster flying over the ship, carrying a piece of gold. One man shoots the gold and Sinbad takes it, despite warnings of its evil, and wears it around his neck. That night, he has dreams of a woman with an eye on her hand, a man in dark clothing, the golden item, and the flying monster. There is also a storm that night, allegedly brought on by the bad luck of the gold. On shore the next day, Sinbad is confronted by Koura, an evil magician who owns the gargoyle creature and wants the gold piece back from Sinbad. The legendary sailor is chased into a keep, where he greets the golden-helmeted Vizier, whose face was burned by Koura's fire. He explains that the gold piece is one of the three that form a map to a place where they must be brought to recieve three powers. Koura listens in via one of the little monsters and hatches a plan to follow Sinbad and the Vizier to the island. Sinbad also picks up a lazy drunk and a slave girl who he sets free, who just happens to have an eye tatoo on her hand.

I'll let it be known now: aside from the homonculi (the flying gargoyle things), there really aren't any stop-motion monsters for a good 30-40 minutes, when the statue at the front of Sinbad's ship is controlled by Koura. The plot holds your attention throughout this, but just barely, as due to the complexities apparent, like the Vizier's face and Koura's aging with each spell he casts.

The acting is... it's ok. Nothing great, but not noticably bad. There are some very cheesy moments, mostly involving the above mentioned drunk whom Sinbad is paid to take on the ship as a sailor. The writing isn't all that great either, but it lasts enough for the stop-motion effects to take over. What I'm saying is, you won't be bored, but you'll be pretty near close.

As for the monsters, they're up to Harryhausen's usual calibur. This movie's grandiose feature is the six-armed Kali statue. The fight between the statue and the sailors is very impressive, especially with how the arms are constantly moving and fluctuating with the movements of the swordsmen. There's still a good 30 minutes to go after that, which are mostly taken up in pursuit of a cycloptean centaur who takes the slave girl away into the caverns of Marabia to eat, as she has been sacrificed by the natives due to the single eye on her palm.

The centaur is probably one of the few Harryhausen monsters (perhaps the only one) that I found mildly disturbing. It looks like it should have some form of speech, and it even sounds as though it could, but it makes the noise of monsters, as if it's a human shouting and screaming like an animal. It's a very creepy sound, and while Harryhausen wasn't responsible for it, he puts it to decent effect.

The centaur battles a griffin later on. The Vizier notes it that the two beasts had been battling eternally, symbolizing the endless struggle between good and evil. They had fought before, and the only reaosn the result changed from the two walking away neither winner or loser was because of the interference of humans.

This is a decent fim, but only worth buying if you are a Harryhausen fan. The DVD doesn't have many features compared to certain other Harryhausen DVDs (*cough*7thVoyage*cough*) but it's better than nothing, which is what many DVDs offer. The second best of the three Harryhausen Sinbad films.