Starring: Kerwin Mathews, Kathryn Grant, Torin Thatcher

Directed by: Nathan Juran    Written by: Ken Kolb    Special effects by: Ray Harryhausen

The Story: If you asked the basic, everyday, regular Joe on the street to name a few famous sailors you'd probably get these answers...Popeye, Columbus, Horatio Hornblower, Jason and Sinbad. The names may vary more than that but I'm almost sure that most people will mention Sinbad.

Too bad that most people don't know a damned thing about Sinbad other than the movies. That includes myself. I only know Sinbad from this movie and a few others and that old 60's cartoon where he had a magic belt. The interesting thing is that although Sinbad is supposedly Arab I've never seen an Arab Sinbad! Even the comedian Sinbad isn't Arab! And since I don't know anything about the adventures of Sinbad in Arab culture I don't even know if this movie is a theatrical version of a Sinbad story. Its entertaining either way and that's what it was met to be.

Sinbad and his crew are sailing to Baghdad...a location I'll remark on later...for the purpose of delivering Princess Parisa of Chandra. She is to be married to...Sinbad! Somehow this will avert a war between Baghdad and Chandra since the Caliph of Baghdad considers Sinbad to be like a son. But Sinbad's ship is blown of course by mysterious winds and ends up at the island of Collossa. Badly needing provisions, Sinbad and his men go ashore to get food and water. There they meet the giant, horrific Cyclops and the magician Sokurah. The Cyclops is chasing Sokurah who is naturally, screaming for help. Sinbad and his men try to help being do-gooders and all, but the Cyclops is too powerful. Sokurah reaches a point of relative safety and pulls out his magic lamp. From which he summons the genie of the lamp and commands it to erect a barrier protecting Sinbad and his men from the monster. The genie, personified in a the body of a pre-teen white kid (what the ...?) does some cartwheels and creates a force field. Sinbad and his men along with Sokurah hastily get to the longboats and start rowing towards Sinbad's ship. Well, I guess Sokurah should have asked the genie for a barrier against the Cyclops and big ass boulders, because the angered creature lifts a large rock and chucks it at our friends. Though he misses, the big splash the rock makes causes the characters to fall into the water and swim for the boat. Sokurah drops the lamp into the briny deep but makes it to the ship with the others. The Genies force field wears off and the colossal Cyclops steps into the waves after the humans...but he stops and grabs the lamp in the water and stalks off back to the island.

Safely aboard Sinbad's ship and now carrying the food and water they need, the crew decides to head to Baghdad with all speed. Sokurah though, requests that Sinbad and his men accompany him back to Collossa Island. He tells Sinbad that many ships have wrecked themselves near the islands and a giant stockpile of riches has been collected by the Cyclops because of it. Sokurah promises wealth beyond belief if the sailors will help him retrieve his magic lamp. But Sinbad refuses. The winds that blew them to the island have already delayed their mission. Sinbad must reach Baghdad in time or risk a war with Chandra. Sokurah is unhappy about the refusal, but he has no choice really so he shuffles off quietly.

On Baghdad, the Caliph greets Sinbad, Parisa and Sokurah. Within a few days, Parisa's father will arrive and the wedding will commence. The Caliph asks Sokurah if he will use his powers at the wedding party to entertain the guests and Sokurah agrees. But Sokurah also asks for a ship and some men to return him to Collossa Island. The Caliph says he cannot ask men to risk their lives in a foolish venture since he himself has not seen the Cyclops. But he will go by Sinbad's recommendation. Here's where we hit the territory of Designated roles, as Jabootu fans my know it. At this point Sokurah has really done nothing wrong. We just must agree he's the villain because he wants his magic lamp back! *Gasp*. Who wouldn't want a magic lamp back!? Also, Sinbad distrusts Sokurah from the start...you can tell just by the way he looks at him after their first meeting....but why? Yes, Sokurah is evil but at this point and to be honest throughout the whole movie he doesn't seem that Evil, just really motivated. Sokurah transforms Sadi, Parisa's handmaiden, into a serpent woman at the Caliph's party, but the Caliph and the Sultan of Chandra are displeased with him when he foretells war in the future. Ironically, the Caliph and the Sultan are the ones that requested the wizard foresee the future. The Caliph banishes him from Baghdad, accusing Sokurah of using his powers to try and manipulate a way back to Collossa Island. Lets look at this...Sokurah only wants to go back to the island get his lamp. He has a castle on the island. He wasn't actually bothering anyone else in the entire world before he was picked up by Sinbad. Sokurah also shows Sinbad a design for a giant crossbow. Plus Sokurah has practically told them that there's a lot of cash to be had for any one who helps him. Yet the characters all treat him as evil and corrupt....before he actually does anything evil!

Well, I might think Sokurah ain't too bad, but the Caliph don't like it and he ain't rockin' the Kasbah....so Sokurah makes his first evil move. Using his powers of magic during the night he shrinks Princess Parisa to only a few inches tall as she sleeps. When the others discover her in the morning, the Sultan promises war on Baghdad for what's happened to his daughter. (Why he thinks the Caliph did this to Parisa is a mystery.) No one thinks of the obvious culprit, Sokurah. He has been ordered to leave the city and he is on his way out when Sinbad catches up to him. Sinbad isn't any smarter than the rest. He doesn't even think "Hey, I made this magic guy mad! Maybe he shrunk my girl!". No, Sinbad pleads for the help of Sokurah in order to restore Parisa. Sokurah tells Sinbad and the Caliph that he can indeed return Parisa to her rightful size, but he needs the vital ingredients of the spell. Basically the shell of the Roc egg found only on...you got it...Collossa Island! Knowing that many of his former crew, except for first mate Harufa, will not go back to the island, Sinbad recruits death row inmates from the Caliph's prison to man his ship. Smart move, Sinbad. A crew of cutthroats. And hey, Sokurah, thus far has only done one truly evil thing, but the Caliph has a prison full of men to be executed? Maybe the Caliph should be the villain! Of course the crew tries to mutiny and take the ship once they're at sea, but sirens, or some derivative thereof almost overwhelm them. Only Sinbad, Sokurah, Harufa and Parisa (carried in a special box Sinbad carries) protect themselves by putting wax in their ears. (I don't remember seeing Parisa do this....why wasn't she driven mad by the siren song?) Sinbad manages to take back his ship and regain command.

After the prerequisite mutiny by the ex-prisoners, Sinbad and his fellows land on Collossa Island. The fairly ignorant crew begin dwindling in numbers by doing dumb things. The usual crack-headed moves that you or I probably wouldn't do....like drinking from a stream after the resident wizard tells you that its poisoned, killing and eating a baby roc after cooking it on a big ass fire (surely a message for the big bad mama roc to come get you) or whooping and hollering like banshees upon finding the treasure trove of the Cyclops. A maneuver that you can be sure brings the Cyclops to them. Well, Cyclops gotta eat too, you know. Sinbad tries to stop his imbecilic crew, but the Cyclops catches them and places them in a cage while he starts roasting Harufa on a spit. Sokurah shows his true colors by refusing to help Sinbad escape. Instead he goes after the magic lamp. But Parisa manages to unlock the cage and Sinbad takes the lamp from the evil magician. Parisa goes inside of the lamp to speak with the genie, Baronni. The genie tells her the magic words that activate the lamp in exchange for Parisa's help in freeing him. You see, the genie just wants to be a real little boy, but can't escape his bondage unless the lamp is destroyed.

Sokurah manages to capture Parisa and plans on killing Sinbad in his secret castle. But the wily sailor makes it past the guardian dragon and into the wizard's inner chambers. He forces Sokurah to keep his end of the bargain and restore the princess to her normal size. Sokurah does so and Sinbad and Parisa begin to leave. Sinbad promises to return the lamp to Sokurah after he and Parisa are safely aboard his ship. But like all power mad villains Sokurah can't leave well enough alone. He uses an animated skeleton to attack Sinbad. Sinbad is a match for the undead warrior and destroys it. Fleeing the crazed sorcerer, he and Parisa cross the river of fire and Parisa realizes that this is the answer to the riddle Baronni told her earlier. By throwing the lamp into the molten lava the genie will be freed. Even though this will deprive them of the genies magical aid, Sinbad agrees that a promise is a promise and they do so. You can imagine how pissed off this makes Sokurah. He unleashes his dragon to kill them but the Cyclops arrives and starts fighting the beast. The Cyclops loses though, and Sokurah and the dragon give chase to Sinbad and Parisa. Sokurah's not the smartest guy though. Remember his designs for a giant crossbow? well, the remainder of Sinbad's crew have assembled it on the beach and when Sokurah and the dragon are within range they skewer the monster with it. the Dragon falls over on top of Sokurah, ending his reign of...uh....doing mean things, forever.

Safely sailing back to Baghdad, Sinbad finds that Baronni is now a real boy, and his joined his crew. Also the former genie has gathered the Cyclops's treasure and brought it on board. with war averted and the princess returned to normal, the movie ends.

Given the last decade of having Baghdad under the control of a jackass like Saddam Hussein, its kind of hard for me to think of it as anything other than a place of...well, bad guys. I guess old movies like this help me remember that even countries we don't see eye to eye with have their own unique history and legends. Not that this movie is very Arabic. If there were any Arabs in it at all they must have been extras. And the genie...what's up with that? This kid looked like Beaver Cleaver! Barbara Eden at least had an excuse...she didn't look Arabic (heck, she's a blonde!) but at least she was hot.

Best Lines:  “No, I cannot...if I am in Baghdad by sundown my eyes will be made dark forever.” - Sokurah puts on a good act bluffing his way into Sinbad's protection from the Caliph.

 Are you kidding me?

1.) How is war with Chandra to be averted simply by having Sinbad marry Parisa? Is he supposed to be royalty? I thought he was just a sailor! And why would a princess want to marry a common sailor?

2.) I'm still trying to figure this out. the Caliph denies Sokurah's request for an expedition back to his island saying that lives are not to be wasted frivolously, yet he has a prison full of death row inmates. So he's willing to have men executed for whatever crimes, but he's unwilling to commission an expedition to Collossa Island even though Sokurah, at that time, was willing to give him the designs for a giant crossbow and the location of the Cyclops treasure? Has this man no idea of scale?

3.) Sokurah has some gnarly powers. He shrinks Parisa without so much as an incantation or any magical ingredients. He can control a dragon. He turned Sadi into a four armed snake woman. You'd think a guy that can do all that would be able to cough up the cash to mount his own expedition back to Collossa Island.

4.) Wouldn't Parisa have gotten smashed around riding in a box hung on Sinbad's belt? She's only a few inches tall, for Pete's Sake! Also she's remarkably calm for someone in that predicament. You'd think she'd be freaking the f*ck out.

5.) How'd Baronni get the treasure onto Sinbad's ship? If he was no longer a genie he wouldn't be able to move all of that stuff by himself. If he did this before he was freed by the lamp then wouldn't that mean that he does have free will? No one told him to move the treasure so he would have had to have done it of his own free will. Not even the Wishmaster can do that!

6.) There's no way Parisa could have unlocked the Cyclops cage. No way. At a few inches tall she wouldn't have the mass to move the bolt. I don't care how hard she pushed. The only way I could by it is if the Cyclops greased the damned thing. Besides, look at the size of the Cyclops! Its about twenty to thirty feet tall! So a normal sized person might have trouble moving a bolt made by a creature that big. A three inch tall woman? Only if she's been eating Popeye's spinach or was a relative of Atom Ant.

Nudity and Sex: none

Huh?:

When Sokurah warns Sinbad about the crew becoming mutinous Sinbad tells him the weapons are locked up and without knives and swords the crew can do nothing. What a moron! There's about TWENTY of them! They might not be able to stab you but they can kick your ass!

Sokurah really is a boob. If he just helped Sinbad escape earlier and gained his trust, he could have restored the princess and then Sinbad would have given him the lamp....which is all he really wanted. Then Sinbad and company would have left the island and he could do whatever he pleased. Which actually couldn't be anything that Evil. He lives on an island populated by monsters! He wasn't bothering anyone at all.....except maybe the monsters, but no one cares about that.

Sokurah also had a silly plan to get rid of the Cyclops. He tells Parisa that he had created a poison to destroy them, but couldn't convince them to take it. Funk dat! He has a magic lamp! As I mentioned earlier, he shrunk the princess and changed Sadi into a snake woman with little effort! He animated a skeleton! Are you telling me that this powerful wizard couldn't come up with a lightning bolt or something to get rid of the Cyclops? He could have simply let his dragon go at them! If I could control a fire breathing dragon I'd get rid of all my enemies in one day!

I love stupid guys in movies like this. a few of the crew decide to ignore Sokurah's warning about the poisoned water and drink it anyway. They complain that the Wizard must be wrong about it. first of all, guys, the water is an unnatural red color. I don't think you want to be drinking that. Plus you've been warned by a guy that has already shown that he has magic powers and lives on an island with giant one eyed monsters. I think I'd take his word for it. Also, I can understand that hunger makes people eat things they normally wouldn't....hell, I've had days when I've had to nut up and eat (ugh) hot dogs from 7-11. (and trust me...that in no way should be confused with food in any manner) But I don't think I'd be real eager to eat the meat of a 20 foot tall two headed bird. There just has gotta be something wrong with that.

The Final Judgment: Its hokey, its silly its lotsa fun. The special effects are pretty cool for a movie that's over forty years old and the monsters shouldn't be too scary for small children. If you've got the urge for a light hearted adventure movie let this genie out of the bottle and check out the flick. There's no CGI monsters but you'll have to at least admire the craft it took for the Stop motion animation.