DreamWorks' new animated adventure Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas reportedly arrives complete with a ringing endorsement by no less a luminary than Ray Harryhausen. To some, that's a little like a new edition of the Bible showing up personally approved by God Himself.Harryhausen is the final word on fantasy and certainly no stranger to the Sinbad character. After all, this is the special effects wizard responsible for some of Hollywood's most memorable illusions, including the much-loved Seventh Voyage of Sinbad as well as the slightly less fabulous Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. Harryhausen wrote the book on this stuff, and if he says Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is OK, who are we to argue?
No argument is really necessary. As animated adventure-fantasies go, Sinbad gets everything pretty much right. As the cliché goes, kids will love it, and adults will be reasonably entertained as well. If you're looking for that something extra, though — that inexplicable spark of inspiration that infuses animated movies such as the Toy Story films, for instance, or even Finding Nemo — don't expect to find it here.
What you will find in Sinbad is perfectly acceptable family fare, even though it's likely to get swallowed up in the vortex of another little movie you may have heard of that's also opening this week called Terminator 3. All the trappings of a traditional animated adventure are contained in Sinbad, complete with an adorable animal sidekick, heroic male lead, sassy female romantic interest, a little slapstick and the obligatory smattering of bodily function jokes to sucker in the kids. The vomit sequence is particularly enchanting.
Nevertheless, this is the stuff of legend we're dealing with. And the movie's feel is, for the most part, suitably epic. It opens with the villainous Eris, Goddess of Discord (Michele Pfeiffer), looking down upon the planet Earth swirling in the cosmic void. "Glorious chaos," purrs Pfeiffer in her best Catwoman voice, a tad thin and a bit too little-girly for some, but sufficiently malicious to make us pay attention. "Let the games begin!"
And so they do. The story is briskly told and episodic, depicting Sinbad's adventures as he sets out to recover The Book of Peace, a vaguely Ark-like (as in Raiders of the Lost Ark) item that seems to be responsible for maintaining the cosmic balance of the universe, or something like that. Sinbad's mission is to wrest The Book from Eris' clutches and return it to its rightful owners in the ancient city of Syracuse, a mystical burg inhabited by lots of bearded, crystal-wearing types who look like they listen to too much Jimmy Buffet.
Sinbad (whose voice is supplied by none other than Brad Pitt) is a pirate, of course, but a sanitized one for modern audiences less than comfortable with the dubious ethics involved in the raping and pillaging on the resume of your run-of-the-mill "real" pirate. The species to which DreamWorks' Sinbad is most closely related is the Han Solo breed of swashbuckling rogue: self-serving and irresponsible, sure, but only up to a point, and with a heart that's eventually revealed as consisting of solid gold. There's also a good bit of Indiana Jones in that DNA, and, indeed, much of DreamWorks' movie resembles Raiders far more than the classic Sinbad legends of yore.
The look of the film is a curious mix of exhilarating choreography, elaborately detailed environments and bland character design, closely modeled after DreamWorks' other animated projects Prince of Egypt and The Road to El Dorado. Human faces are slightly elongated, with annoyingly oversized, anime-esque eyes that seem an all-too transparent shortcut for conveying genuine emotion. When the characters' faces aren't in motion or speaking — that is, when they're literally not animated —they're uniformly uninteresting.
What is interesting and, in more than a few instances, pretty darned exciting, is the movie's handling of its action sequences, particularly the distinctly Harryhausen-esque encounters with various mythological creatures. Every one of these scenes is virtually an animated homage to something out of Jason and the Argonauts or some other Harryhausen creation. Sinbad's versions aren't terribly original in and of themselves, but they're still pretty cool and they neatly evoke the master's patented mix of spooky grandeur and a sheer sense of the fantastic. The animation on these sequences is mostly of the old-school, hand-drawn variety, but the 2-D elements are blended (albeit somewhat awkwardly) with the more immediately arresting 3-D computer-generated imagery sprinkled throughout.
As for our intrepid hero, Sinbad's not quite as distinctive as we'd like either. Even his ethnicity is basically left to the imagination. Arabian Nights origins aside, don't expect any specific Arabic typecasting or Aladdin-like "It's barbaric, but, hey, it's home" quips to stir up controversy in our hypersensitive, post 9-11 world.
Still, despite the main character's indeterminate origins, Sinbad isn't a total case of ethnic cleansing. The ship's crew features a token or two from a smorgasbord of peoples, with something to offend nearly everyone. There are a couple of confused looking Chinese (cooks, presumably), a strapping African with a basso-profundo voice (supplied by Dennis Haysbert) and jumbo nipples that could poke a man's eye out, and a little rodent-like Mexican fellow called — no cringing, now — Rat.
That's about as bad as the non-PC stuff gets (unless of course, you count the leg-humping doggie jokes). The movie's savvy enough to know when it's being insensitive, in fact, and even tosses us a distinctly PC bone by way of compensation, in the form of its supremely self-possessed heroine, Marina (Catherine Zeta-Jones). She's a match for any of the female fireballs Disney's been manufacturing in recent years, and, in at least one key scene, it's Marina who saves the day when every male around her goes limp. In what is certainly the movie's most interesting (and weirdly sexual) sequence, Sinbad's ship enters the cave of the sirens (no psychology 101 jokes, please), whereupon every male crewmember is instantly seduced into a hypnotic stupor as the ship drifts to its doom. As the ship's stupefied crewmembers, Sinbad included, cocoon themselves in a collective reverie of macho sex fantasies, it's up to the yin power of the movie's lone female warrior to save their sorry male asses.
It all culminates in a big cosmic blow-out of a finale that once again evokes Spielberg's Raiders, as well as some even loftier sources, not excluding the biblical story of Isaac and Jacob, and even Jesus up on the cross. The references aren't all that much of a stretch, with the movie's narrative ultimately hinging on Sinbad proving his strength of character by sacrificing himself for a friend, thereby setting us up for a happy ending in which everybody gets exactly what they want and need.
And yes, even in the midst of all this high-principled activity and worlds teetering on the verge of annihilation, the movie still manages to sneak in a shot of Sinbad's butt. Saving the world with grace and style is all fine and good, but never forget that, for millions of paying moviegoers, Sinbad remains a Brad Pitt movie, first and last.
Declaration of IndependentsFor most of us, the July 4 weekend means the smell of red meat sizzling on a small army of backyard grills, a few extra flags fluttering around the neighborhood, and, if we're lucky, an extra day or so off work.
For local film buffs, the July 4 weekend has taken on an additional meaning over the last 10 years. Every year at this time, The Education Channel presents its Independents' Film Festival, an award-winning celebration of independent filmmaking, with a strong emphasis on young local talent. The festival will be broadcast on the Education Channel on July 4, 6, 11 and 13, with a "Best of Fest" screening taking place at Tampa Theatre on September 19 and a filmmakers' panel at Tampa Museum of Art on September 20.
Highlights of the festival include a program of student films from Hillsborough County schools (July 4, 7 p.m.), a selection of new works from all over the world (July 13, 9 p.m.) and The Medium, a short film that was shot in Tampa Theatre (July 6, 9 p.m.).
Other highlights are likely to include Cuba is Cuba, an experimental documentary about a young immigrant (July 11, 9 p.m.), and Dodge U, a feature-length film that is a collaboration of 25 students from the University of Central Florida (July 6, 9 p.m.). More new films will be featured every Friday and Saturday evening in July, including the premiere of A Small Miracle, a feature film from Hong Kong.
The Education Channel is broadcast on Time Warner channels 18 and 21 in Hillsborough County. (Sorry Pinellas folks, you're out of luck for the moment.) For more information, call 813-254-2253.
Film Critic Lance Goldenberg can be reached at lgoldenb@tampabay.rr.com or 813-248-8888 ext. 157.
This article appears in Jul 3-9, 2003.