One can’t accuse Dreamworks of not knowing their audience. With
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, they have succeeded in
making the perfect movie for undereducated 14-year-old girls and
their 2-year-old children. If you don’t consider yourself to be
even slightly like either of these groups you’d best keep your wallet
in your pants.
Sinbad opens with The Goddess of Discord, Eris (voiced by
Michelle Pfeiffer), plotting to bring some trouble to the world
below. A generic opening for a generic picture. She releases a sea
monster and the ‘fun’ begins. Sinbad (Voiced by Brad Pitt) and his
crew pursue a ship laden with fabulous treasure; well, actually
just The Book of Peace. They board the ship and Sinbad runs into
an old buddy (Voiced by Josef Fiennes). Somehow he knew there was
treasure on the ship but not that his childhood friend, also a prince,
was the captain.
They fight amongst themselves and then band together to fight the
3D sea monster that Eris released into the 2D animated world. They
sail on to Syracuse where Eris, disguised as Sinbad, steals the
Book of Peace. Sinbad sets out to rescue the book, clear his name,
and save Proteus who has taken Sinbad’s place on the chopping block.
Oh, and Marina, (Voiced by Catherine Zeta Jones) Proteus’s betrothed,
tags along.
When pitched in these generic beats it sounds like the makings
of a good time. Unfortunately, that’s just how the picture plays
out. Bad action beats punctuated with bad action quips. The characterizations
are dullsville and the plot has no real urgency or even any excitement
within the action.
The picture is co-directed (generally a bad sign outside of established
teams) by Patrick Gilmore and Tim Johnson. Johnson can be blamed
for the lameness that is Antz but seemingly guiltier for
this bomb is Gilmore whose background features many unmemorable
video game versions of Disney pictures. Sinbad plays out
like a video game: mindless trials through which our heroes pass
easily, broken up by a few talking cut scenes.
The visual style of the film ranges from dull to grating. With
an awful mixture of 3D and 2D animation, characters have smooth
simple faces drawn with as few lines as possible and even less shading,
while the settings and backgrounds are overly textured to the point
of being distracting. It’s like having the South Park kids from
the first season wandering around the CG’d locations of Episode
2.
The characters, save the title character, have little to no personality-the
kiss of death for a picture with no innovation in the plot. Proteus
literally and figuratively just takes up space and, taking a clue
from their voice talent, the artists draw Marina with the same stupid
expression on her face no matter what the situation. Whether under
attack by a giant snow bird or trading sub-I Love Trouble
banter, Marina never leaves home without that razor edged smile
plastered across her kisser.
Pitt does all he can, but even his boundless charm can only drag
this uninteresting Sinbad so far before he tires out and the bland
animation takes over. It’s not so much that the picture is bad as
it is unremarkable. When one is dealing with such remarkable material
that may be the biggest crime one can commit.
Instead of lowering our standards when dealing with this type of
picture, we need to raise them. These are the films that will form
the next generation of filmgoers and the worse things they cut their
teeth on, the worse the pictures that will be made 10 and 20 years
from now will get. Let’s hope enough kids will be spared this mess,
and if you’re responsible for the education of a little one, try
to fill the time that would’ve otherwise been spent on this with
the far superior The 7Th Voyage of Sinbad or even the not
that great but still much better Sinbad and The Eye of the Tiger.