*** ^1/2             The Final Voyage of Sinbad

Unfortunately every time I hear of this movie I get a modified version of that "Eye of the Tiger" song stuck in my head. Ironically the movie has hardly anything to do with eyes of tigers; the antagonist of the piece displays cat-like eyes whenever she casts a spell but that's really about it. Anyways, this is the third and final Sinbad movie that features Ray Harryhausen's wonderful stop-motion effects. Probably the biggest and most ambitious of the lot, but not necessarily the best, yet it still holds up as a pretty good movie.

Sinbad (Patrick Wayne, son of John Wayne) once again travels to a distant land, in this case to marry a long-time girlfriend, Princess Farah (two-time Bond girl Jane Seymour). Unfortunately, a certain sorceress put a spell on Prince Kassim, brother of Farah and good friend of Sinbad, which turned him into a baboon. They have 7 moons to change him back, so set sail to find the wise-man Melanthius for help. He tells them to go Ademaspai, an artificial warm-spot at the North Pole made by ancient people, and tags along for the journey. Along the way they are occasionally annoyed by Zenobia, who used her magic to turn Kassim into a baboon so that her son Rafi could take the thrown. They had followed them in a boat powered by a bronze bull-headed mechanical construct, the Minoton. To find out what they were up to, Zenobia turned herself into a seagull to spy on them, but things don't go so well when she transforms into a miniature version of herself, spotted by Kassim, and stuck in a jar by Melanthius. She escapes due to a distraction by an enlarged bee, but due to a slip-up in potion quantity ends up keeping the foot of a seagull. Eventually the Sinbad crew makes it to the North Pole, but can't take the shortcut through the ice tunnel (unlike the smaller boat following them), so take the long way to get to Ademaspai, which means an encounter with a giant walrus. Eventually they get to the warm spot and skinny-dip in the river before moving on, finding an ancient human-like being known as a Troglodyte. They befriend him and he helps take them to the main temple/pyramid. There they turn Karrim back into human form and have the final showdown with Zenobia, who transferred herself into a nearby frozen saber-toothed cat. They of course make it back in time and everyone (who is still alive) lives happily ever after.

The plot itself has a bit more complexity to it and for the most part is set up pretty well. Unfortunately the dialogue involved is pretty stiff and the actors don't have much to work with. Resultantly the only characters that stand out is Melanthius, the crazed scientist, and Zenobia, the not-very-smart-but-still-dangerous sorceress. None of it matters too much because the real purpose of the movie is the larger adventure at hand. They did a great job with the selection of locations and special effect additives to the background. Beautiful and varied scenery pervades the whole movie. The dramatic castle at the beginning, the awe-inspiring ruins at Melanthius's island, the haunting beauty of the ice cave, the boulder-strewn fields of Ademaspai, and the impressive interior of the Pyramid all combine to make this movie a visual masterpiece to behold. The journey is truly epic is scale, and this of course combines well with the various creatures found along the way.

This movie probably has more stop-motion effects then any other movie Ray Harryhausen undertook. You get a lot, and the somewhat magical quality of the process adds a lot to the wonder of the movie. That said, really though the movie is an exercise in doing stop-motion for the sake of stop-motion. For example, the baboon in the story is done with stop motion, and yes you do get to see a much larger range of emotions for this man trapped in an apes body, but they didn't have to do this. They could have gotten away with a trained chimp or something, but although it's nice they didn't go that route, you still feel as if the stop-motion baboon was unnecessary. Even more so is the Minoton, who part of the time shown as a suitamation process (inside the tin can is Peter Mathew of Chewbacca fame). Using stop-motion to show this character was in this case mostly unnecessary because the effect would have been just the same if they stuck with the suit. The Minoton doesn't even do much beyond rowing the boat anyways, the poor guy is crushed in an unfortunate accident before even meeting Sinbad's crew. Somewhat more borderline is the zomboids, three bug-like human-shaped creatures that pop out of a fire and attack Sinbad and his crew near the beginning of the movie. Very nice effect in stop-motion, beautifully rendered and fitting with the live action near-perfectly, and they look very dramatic with the lighting conditions involved. Now although the zomboids are wicked cool and I'm glad for their addition, one can't help but wonder why they didn't just use guys in suits. Yes it's great that they didn't just cheap-out with the effects and gave us plenty of stop-motion to pervade the entire movie, but the unfortunate side effect is a feeling that all of this was unnecessary. Somewhat contradictory but that's the feeling I got. Still, not every effect was unnecessary. The scene with the bee was rather cool, the walrus just wouldn't be the same any other way, and the battle between Sinbad and the Troglodyte vs. The Saber-Tooth in the Pyramid with falling giant icicles and the glowing stuff in the background ranks as one of the better stop-motion battles ever made. The bottom line is that if you like stop-motion creature effects, you will not be disappointed with this movie.

Fairly well laid out plot

Terrific as usual special effects

More than enough stop-motion creature effects

Epic adventure through a lot of beautiful locals

Action, romance, drama, humor, everything you need

Stiff uninteresting dialogue

Somewhat unusual moments that don't fit the movie very well

Stop-motion that, despite being cool, felt somehow unnecessary

Inaccurate technobable by the scientist guy (for example, binomial nomenclature wasn't invented yet)

That was your plan all along, sicking one guy with a knife against a bunch of guys with swords? Yeah, real smart.

Credits