Sinbad of the Seven Seas

THE STORY: When you think of Sinbad the sailor, what image pops into your mind? Do you think of those old 70's movies? Do you picture Sinbad as tall, thin, but well built man with a moustache, a turban and a long scimitar? I'm betting you don't think of a big, slab of muscle like Lou Ferrigno! Well, that's who Sinbad is in this movie!

I'll let you in on a secret. I knew this movie was going to suck way, way before I rented it. I have seen the box in the video store a dozen times and not bothered to pick it up. But for some reason, last trip to the store, I grabbed it. According to Greywizard at the Unknown movies the story on the box isn't what happens in the movie. I didn't read the box, though. I just grabbed  the movie. Oh, and what a long strange voyage it was.

It starts off with a little caption about Edgar Allen Poe...how he wrote some Sinbad stories or something. I've read some Poe...."The Cask of amontillado" is one of my favorite stories. If Poe did write about Sinbad he damn sure didn't write this. Poe was talented. Well, then we see a mother reading a little girl a bedtime story about Sinbad. If this was the Princess Bride it would have been a comedy. Uh, no...this movie is too bad to be actually funny. Forget I said that.

The story goes like this...In the land of Basra, the evil wizard Jaffar (not to be confused with the Disney character from Aladdin...I think...) has used his magic to take over. He's incapacitated the Khalif and taken his lovely daughter Princess Aleen as a hostage. Jaffar doesn't want Aleen to marry Sinbad's shipmate, the Prince Ali.(He floats like butterfly and stings like a bee! He's the greatest...sorry) Hmmm....Jaffar, Ali....don't those names seem to crop up a lot in movies like this. What are there only like, 5 names in Arabia to go around? Sinbad's other shipmates are a dwarf, a bald cook, a Viking(!) and a Samurai (!) I'm not joking either. Why are you rolling your eyes?

Anyhoo, when Sinbad and his friends arrive in the kingdom, Sinbad is taken prisoner and his friends are put in the torture chamber. But Sinbad talks the snakes in the dungeon into helping him escape. I'm still not joking....and he rescues his friends. Then they deduce that in order to save Basra and the princess from Jaffar they must recover these four magic gems that Jaffar has scattered around the world. I swear the way this is presented makes you believe that they made this movie up along the way while filming. Most of the exposition...[unwrite], ALL of the exposition comes from the narrator, ie, the little girl's mom.

Sinbad and friends then journey to various islands and fight monsters. Well, mostly Sinbad fights the monsters, and during the entire thing the narrator says stuff like "The mighty Sinbad does this" and "the heroic and strong Sinbad does that". It makes it hard to even believe that Sinbad may lose. His friends mop up the floor with any demons or monsters that Jaffar sends easily and Sinbad himself effortlessly beats any opponent. The entire time, Sinbad is shirtless, dressed more like a Greek hero than Sinbad the sailor.

Then there's Soukra....I don't know what the deal is with her. Soukra is a huge, muscle woman that seems to be working with Jaffar, but she doesn't DO anything. When Sinbad arrives back in Basra (with the aid of a magician and the magicians daughter, Kyra) Soukra is gone! Sinbad then faces Jaffar and Jaffar pulls out one of the lamest tricks in the book...He magically creates a doppelganger Sinbad for Sinbad to fight. I hate that. It was tired back when Captain Kirk had to face his evil double on Star trek. We all know "Good" Sinbad wins, so why go into more detail. Sinbad then places the gems back in some weirdass symbol where they came from and all of Jaffar's magic is gone. The Khalif doesn't remember anything that's happened but Sinbad forces Jaffar to resign as the Khalif's vizier and throws him in the dungeon. (I wonder if Jaffar will ask the snakes for help?)

The assembled characters cheer Sinbad...including Soukra! What the hell was the point of this character? I smell treachery afoot. Not Soukra's, but in this movie's script. It looks like there may have been two scripts...and one included Soukra in some way. Maybe filming wasn't completed with her parts in it so they clopped together what they had to make this...mockery. Or maybe the scriptwriters and directors were really high on something. It doesn't matter too much, does it?

As I said, Sinbad was played by the late Lou Ferrigno. Ferrigno's biggest claim to fame was as Bill Bixby's alter ego on the TV show The Incredible Hulk. ( "Hulk Smash!"...well the TV Hulk never spoke) Soukra was the one and only Teagan Clive! I knew it was her as soon as she appeared on camera. Teagan has been in other wildly bad movies like Interzone and Alienator. She's kind of sexy, but she can probably break most of us in half like dry twigs. (I cannot believe I just thought she was sexy!)

Best Lines: "Now disappear...go back where you came from, you filthy, evil, spirit!"- Sinbad defeats a demon and crushes its heart.

"Gosh, you're sure beautiful!"-Sinbad to the Amazon Queen. The way he said it made him sound like Chumly the walrus from those old Tennessee Tuxedo cartoons.

1.) This is beyond goofy! Sinbad's sidekicks are a Viking warrior and a samurai? Did Poe really write this? Why didn't he throw in a cowboy too for good measure? And a centaur?

2.) Get the [unwrite] outta here! In order to escape the dungeon Sinbad gets "his friends" the SNAKES to help him. Yes, snakes....cobras it looks like. Get this...he ties them together into a rope and climbs them. (He asks them to help first....I had no idea Sinbad was related to Doctor Dolittle!) Now before Sinbad was imprisoned he threw his sword away. When he breaks into the torture chamber to save his friends he pulls out...his sword!! How'd he get that back? Did his friends the snakes make him a new one? It doesn't matter though because before the fight even starts he THROWS that one to the ground! Is he on some kind of no-sword regimen?

3.) This is one of those movies that doesn't even try to be historically correct. I'm not sure what time period Sinbad was supposed to have existed but I'm plenty sure it was before the age of knights in suits of armor. However on the island of the dead, that's exactly what Sinbad and his friends must face...knights in medieval armor! Is this island of the dead supposed to Avalon? (If the narrator had said that it was I'd still think it was stupid, but I'd give them an "A" for being clever enough to think of a reason for the armor....no make that a "C"...historically the time that King Arthur was supposed to have lived was before plate armor was invented.)

4.) You know at the end of the movie, Rob Roy, when Rob Roy grabs his opponents sword before he gets killed, at least he cut his hand doing so. When the ghost king swings his sword at Sinbad, the mighty sailor grabs the blade and simply takes it from him. Wow. What a hero.

5.) Sinbad is from [unwrite]ing Planet Krypton! In order to fill the hot air balloon with hot air he blows into it! I'm not making this up! Its like those old Superman cartoons when ol' Supe's would blow and make a windstorm! Why didn't they just change the names of some of the characters and places and make this a Hercules movie? Sinbad is half naked, dressed more like Herc than like Sinbad. To quote Crow T. Robot from Mystery Science theater 3000 "I thought Sinbad was a guy that wore baggy pants and a vest with no shirt!" Not in this movie....he's a guy that looks like the Incredible Hulk and has the powers of the Man of steel!

6.) Sinbad, you creep! While heading home in Nadir's balloon Sinbad says "You call this a flying machine?"...um, Sinbad, you ARE flying in it! That's like sailing in your ship and asking "You call this a boat?". Plus he complains that the balloon is losing altitude. Um...Sinbad why don't you use your super-windbag breath and blow more hot air into it, you nincompoop?

NUDITY AND SEX: nada

HUH?: Kantu, the samurai makes a helluva din when he gets caught by the amazons, yet Sinbad doesn't hear him?

Jaffar is not only a powerful magician, he's also the creator of Plexiglas, plastic and a set that must have been used on an old Lost in space Episode!

Okay, when Kyra first appeared I thought to myself, "Damn, who is that?". I had to stop the tape and go look on the Internet Movie Database because I was sure it was Sharon Stone! Well, I was wrong, but if you have seen this movie or ever do watch it tell me if she doesn't resemble Sharon Stone!

Why can't movie monsters use their powers effectively? The monster that has the last gem can shoot laser beams! Instead of shooting Sinbad in the heart and just killing him the monster proceeds to shoot everything else around him, the floor, the walls...even the ropes that bind Kyra! C'mon! The creature is only about six feet away from Sinbad! It can't possibly miss!

After Jaffar's defeat, Princess Aleen frees herself from Jaffar's mind control machine...which didn't ever work, since she was never controlled. But all she does is wriggle her wrist and the bolt holding her hand slides back. If she could get out that easily why didn't she do so before? How long has she been in that thing? months? Its not like Sinbad has a motorboat...it takes time to sail to all those places! Sinbad says they have to get the gems within "seven moons". Methinks Aleen will have some wicked-bad bedsores!

THE TALLY: Its a toss up for this one....its either going to make you laugh, cry or just scratch your head and say "What the [unwrite]?". I'm not going to watch it ever again, but for a bad movie lover I'd suggest it. At least it will answer the question in your mind "Why wasn't Lou Ferrigno a big movie star like Arnold Shwarzenegger?". The reason is this flick. I'll bet Guy Williams* is spinning in his grave.

*Guy Williams played Sinbad in a popular 50's series. He was also Dr. John Robinson on the original Lost in Space.