Sinbad is one of those characters that everyone has heard of, but who most people, if you were to ask them, couldn't really tell you much about. "Um, he's a sailor?" or "He fights skeletons that came back to life" is probably all you would get from those same folks, though just about everybody will know who Sinbad is and what he looks like: dark, handsome, swashbucklingmaybe throw in a bandana, a goatee and a half-open shirt, and you've got Sinbad.
So it only makes sense that such an iconic character should receive a cinematic updating, and the animation team at DreamWorks SKG have undertaken the task. The result is a modernization of the legend of Sinbad that fleshes out the hero, adds big budgetalbeit non-live-actionluster to the legend, and channels the highflying adventure that typifies the character.
Brad Pitt leads the voice cast as Sinbad, a selfish mercenary and pirate who returns to his homeport of Syracuse (one wonders whatever happened to Baghdad?) to steal the powerful, magical Book of Peace. But that old Han Solo spirit proves too strong in the roguish Sinbad, and he finds that he can't bring himself to seal the dealparticularly when he's reunited with his old friend (and the prince of Syracuse) Proteus (Joseph Fiennes).
The book goes missing anyway, though, stolen by the goddess of chaos, Eris (Michelle Pfeiffer), and the proletariat Sinbad is promptly accused of the crime by the upper-class of the city. He is sentenced to death, but Proteus cuts a deal with the city leaders: he'll stand in Sinbad's place, shackled and awaiting execution, while the sailor takes off in search of the book and redemption. If he does not return, Proteus will be killed instead.
What follows Brad Pitt provides the voice of the title character - "the most daring and notorious rogue ever to sail the Seven Seas" - in SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS. © 2003 DreamWorksis a stirring, handsomely visualized adventure that works just as well as a morality play, as Sinbad struggles with the temptation to sail off for Fiji (the world was better explored than we knew 1,000 years ago) and leave Proteus to his fate. Sinbad also must deal with his feelings for Marina (Catherine Zeta-Jones), Proteus' consort who is as able-bodied asthough more shapely-bodied thanany of Sinbad's crew. She has stowed away onboard to make sure that he fulfills his obligations to his old friend, but the longer the two are together, the closer they come to betraying Proteus in an entirely different way.
These are more mature themes than we're accustomed to seeing in animated fare, and Pitt's Sinbad is a somewhat darker hero than one might expect, considering that SINBAD is a kid's film. In fact, the picture is rated PG, though that might have more to do with Marina and Sinbad's flirting with infidelity than anything else.
Framing these character beats are some magnificent action setpieces, most of which merge classical cel animation with computer generated backgrounds and figures. The showstopper comes when Sinbad's ship enters an area of sea populated by wrecked ships and cavernous, high cliffs. We soon realize that the area is populated by Sirens, a group of mesmerizing, entrancing female spirits whose hypnotic song overtakes all the male members of the crew, who are so distracted that they don't mind if the ship crashes on the dangerous rocks and cliffs. It falls to Marinaand Sinbad's faithful mutt, Spiketo save the day, and the result, abetted by Harry Gregson-Williams' music, is one of the best sequences of adventure cinema in recent memory: equally exciting, funny, poetic and beautiful.
Where the film falters, if at all, is in the lack of interaction between key characters. Sinbad has little to do with Eris really, Proteus spends the bulk of the film back in Syracuse, and even Sinbad's crew are less integral to the plot than they should be. As a result, the climax of SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS feels a bit anticlimactic, but you know, maybe that's a good thing for a change.
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