The 7 Adventures Of Sinbad Review by Bobby LePire. Edited by Courtney McAllister.

 

There have been numerous incarnations of the Sinbad character in film. Some big budgeted live action, some Italian cheesy knockoffs, some animated, and only one set in modern times. That sounds entirely crazy, I know. But in all of the other movie adaptations they kept the time period accurate (roughly). Leave it to The Asylum to try and bring this character forward. Were they successful?

 

To start off, we are thrown into the middle of the action. Some small speedboats are charging towards a huge tanker. The occupants of the speedboats then proceed to take over the boat. Pirates in the first two minutes! The crew of the ship try to fight back but are overpowered. After the opening titles, we are treated to businessman/ thrill seeker Adrian Sinbad (Patrick Muldoon) unveiling his company’s latest submersible, which is designed to clean up underwater oil spills. The press conference is going well. Sinbad’s assistant comes to tell him the bad news about his company’s tanker. This sets off a rescue mission, which is the bulk of our plot. During which our intrepid hero will face off against cannibalistic shipwreck survivors worshipping “fire rocks”, a cyclops, a kraken, Rocs, and all sorts of other things that would make Harryhausen proud.

 

Throwing us into the middle of the action and revealing how it’s all connected later (granted, only five minutes or so) gives this a sense of urgency that grabs your attention immediately. The press conference is a fairly smart way of doing an exposition dump in a way that doesn’t completely feel like one. The characterizations are also swiftly established during all this-

 

• Adrian Sinbad, businessman concerned with his family legacy/ not afraid to get his hands dirty. “Can’t rule the seas if you’re afraid of the water” is the only reason we’re given as to why he goes. It’s the only reason we need.

 

• Gemma Hargrove (Kelly O’Leary), Sinbad’s right hand. Always prepared and will stick by her employer no matter what. There is not a romantic relationship here at all, thank goodness!

 

• Simon Magnusson (a smarmy Bo Svenson) is the business partner/ typical evil office overlord.

 

I am not going through all the crew and various people they run into, because that would take all day. The point I hopefully got across with all that is that this movie delivers it’s plot and characterizations quite efficiently without any pandering.

 

Muldoon works quite well as the action hero. Ruggedly handsome enough to be believable as the adventuring sort, while ostensibly a businessman, he looks right in both parts. His delivery, especially of his one liners, has an effective cocky attitude about them, as if he knows he’s two steps ahead of everyone else in the room. This works nine out of ten times, but he attempts the Liam Neesson low growl to show intensity a couple of times, and that sounds unconvincing. For the most part though, he’s damn good.

 

Kelly O’Leary is fun and confident in her role, and she and Muldoon compliment each other nicely. Their rapport is fun, and it does sound like they’ve been doing this for a long time. As previously stated, Bo Svenson is smarmy and deliciously evil. Never quite over-the-top, just obviously bubbling under the surface, it’s a performance that makes the cliched character he plays more fun than is deserved.

 

After their helicopter crashes, Sinbad and company wash ashore on an uncharted island, where they meet Sarah Desage’s Loa. In Keira Knightley’s costume from “King Arthur”, painted warrior tribal face, and a belief in a prophecy that Sinbad is there to fulfill this character, on paper, should be every annoyingly trite stereotype of tribal characters ever. In reality, thanks to a great performance, great chemistry with Muldoon (she’s the romantic interest) and a few twists I shall not spoil here, she’s my favorite character in the movie. Desage never plays the character as dumb, and it’s written in the script that the longer she’s around the survivors the better her English is gets. While not “The 13th Warrior” levels of brilliant use of language in a film, certainly more interesting than expected.

 

Writer/ directors Ben Hayflick and Adam Silver clearly have an affection for the fantasy-adventure genre, specifically the films of Ray Harryhausen, whose films are referenced a few times throughout (when you made three Sinbad films and are the godfather to all of modern special effects, that is bound to happen). They keep the action moving, and use smooth editing transitions. However, their blocking of most of the action scenes, especially the underwater bits, is mundane. Not bad, but very point and shoot, without trying to give an epic scope to the proceedings. Which is too bad, as the frames themselves are nicely composed, and the cutwaways to the happenings at Sinbad’s company never feel out of place. So there’s talent there, but it fails to enliven the action.

 

I suppose they were hoping that the homages would be enough to carry them through, and sometimes that does work. The cyclops’ design bares a striking resemblance to the Harryhausen creation in “The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad”. With a slightly more gnarled, menacing look but still recognizably that mold, it works. The CGI is solid, and it does represent a real threat. The Rocs prove less of a menace- simply tricking them and then running down a cliff in seconds thanks to the magic of editing- but look great, again with a more monstrous look than their predecessor. These giant, reptilian birds have a scaly, more dinosaur-esque look that does cause them to be scary. The main creature though is the kraken, and it looks like a kraken. Nothing particularly noteworthy about its design, but the sense of scale it emits is impressive. The tentacle movements are a bit jerky above the water, but underneath it moves surprisingly slickly; no doubt the murkiness of the water effectively hiding some of it. A late in the game twist as to its true motivations make for a nice surprise, and give the film some solid rewatchability.

 

The action/ adventure genre is my favorite, and Ray Harryhausen created some of the greatest fantasy adventures of all time. The Asylum’s modern day homage to his films stays quite true to his spirit and sense of fun. While some flaws do exist, I think the fun far outweighs the bad and this is a great 90 minute ride.