Film Review: Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003)

*All reviews contain spoilers*
Disclaimer: This blog is purely recreational and not for profit. Any material, including images and/or video footage, is property of their respective companies, unless stated otherwise. The author claims no ownership of this material. The opinions expressed therein reflect those of the author and are not to be viewed as factual documentation. All screencaps are from Animationscreencaps.com.

 

Cast –
Andrew Birch – Grum and Chum
Chung Chan – Li
Jim Cummings – Luca and additional voices
Joseph Fiennes – Proteus
Adriano Giannini – Rat
Dennis Haysbert – Kale
Raman Hui – Jin
Chris Miller – Tower Guard
Michelle Pfeiffer – Eris
Brad Pitt – Sinbad
Conrad Vernon – Jed
Frank Welker – Spike
Timothy West – Dymas
Catherine Zeta-Jones – Marina
Sources of Inspiration – The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, an Arabic tale best known in English from the version by Antoine Galland, 1701, and classical mythology
Release Dates –
June 23rd, 2003 in Century City, California, USA (premiere)
July 2nd, 2003 in USA (general release)
Run-time – 86 minutes
Directors – Tim Johnson and Patrick Gilmore
Composers – Harry Gregson-Williams
Worldwide Gross – $80 million
Accolades – 9 nominations

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2003 in History

Belgium becomes the second country to recognise same-sex marriage
The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurs over Texas, killing all seven astronauts on board
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia becomes the joint state of Serbia and Montenegro; the two would declare their independence from each other a few years later
The War in Darfur begins in Sudan; unfortunately, it continues to this day
US troops invade Iraq, kicking off the Iraq War and ending Saddam Hussein’s reign (he was arrested in Operation Red Dawn at the end of the year)
The Human Genome Project is completed, with 99 percent of the human genome sequenced to near-perfect accuracy
Dewey becomes the first deer to be cloned upon his birth at Texas A&M University; days later, the first cloned horse, Prometea, is born in Italy
The Second Congo War is brought to an end after almost five years of destruction and death
The Convention on the Future of Europe sets up the first European Constitution, a precursor to the Treaty of Lisbon
President Charles Taylor resigns and thus ends the Second Liberian Civil War
The Spitzer Space Telescope is launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida
North Korea, South Korea, Japan, the USA, China and Russia engage in the first six-party talks, regarding North Korea’s nuclear weapons program
China launches their first manned spaceflight, Shenzhou 5
Concorde makes its final flight in the UK, ending the era of commercial supersonic travel
The Akkala Sami language goes extinct with the death of its last native speaker, Maria Sergina
Births of Prince Gabriel of Belgium, Quvenzhané Wallis, Lady Louise Windsor of the UK, Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange (Netherlands) and Neel Sethi

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Hello everyone, and welcome (at last) to the next film review. We come now to the final hand-drawn DreamWorks film, an infamous offering from 2003 starring a certain swashbuckling sailor which has gone down in history as one of the biggest failures in animation – but is that fair?

The character of Sinbad had already appeared in numerous films and shorts before this, of course, including some early animated ones by the likes of Ub Iwerks and the Fleischer brothers, but perhaps the most notable were Ray Harryhausen’s trilogy of films from 1958-1977. As with many of DreamWorks’s first productions, the idea for this one came from Jeffrey Katzenberg, who had been incubating it since his Disney days (where it had been rejected by then-CEO Michael Eisner). Perhaps Katzenberg was a fan of the old Harryhausen films, or maybe he grew up with the One Thousand and One Nights stories, but either way, he resurrected the Sinbad idea at his own studio and thus, this awkward adventure was born.

As I’m sure many of you know, the film was an almighty flop upon release, a fact which would have a devastating effect on the medium of hand-drawn animation as a whole, but for me, the bigger problem right now is that DreamWorks have totally washed their hands of it and nobody is talking about it anymore. I’ve been having this problem for several recent film reviews, which I think is partly why I’ve been procrastinating so much lately (in addition to just being lazy) – there’s almost nothing written on the production of them at all, making research very frustrating.

At barely sixteen, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is too young to have hit any major nostalgia milestones yet, so the only details I was able to find were about its star-studded cast. This was another trend borrowed from Disney, where Robin Williams’ star turn as the Genie in Aladdin had popularised the casting of celebrities in animated roles; DreamWorks ran with this, with Sinbad being one of the more egregious examples (not that I’m complaining, as these big names were big for a reason, after all).

Originally, Russel Crowe was slated to voice the lead role of Sinbad, but he dropped out in 2001 due to scheduling problems (unsurprising, given how many high-profile projects he was involved in at the time). Unfazed, the team then turned to another of the hottest names of the early 2000s: Brad Pitt. At first glance, he might have seemed rather an odd choice for a family-oriented animated film, but he explained that he took the role precisely to try and reach a new demographic, saying that his nieces and nephews “can’t get into my movies. People’s heads getting cut off, and all that.”

Apparently, Pitt was actually set to narrate Spirit before being replaced by Matt Damon, so he must have been in talks with the studio for a while. He worried that his Missourian accent would not fit the Middle Eastern character of Sinbad but was assured by the team that it would “lighten the mood” – which I suppose is just another way of saying that accuracy went out the window in favour of star power. (No slur on Brad there, just on the cynicism of the studio).

Michelle Pfeiffer, who was apparently brought on to voice the nefarious Eris at the request of her children, also had reservations about her part as she struggled to pin down the character’s personality. Through several rewrites, she first played the goddess as “too sexual,” then overcompensated and made her too dull; after a third rewrite, she even called Katzenberg up and told him, “You know, you really can fire me.” (Bless her). Luckily, he assured her that such changes were all part of the process and she remained onboard, which is great for us as Eris is easily one of the most captivating aspects of the film.

Unfortunately, no amount of talent could save Sinbad from the wrath of the ever-fickle masses. Faced with stiff competition during its theatrical run and adding to a kind of glut of similar action-heavy animated features at the time, the film quickly crashed and burned in spectacular fashion – but we’ll get into that further below. First, we need to give this one another look to see if it’s truly deserving of its dubious status as one of animation’s most embarrassing flops… perhaps it’s not as bad as it seems.

 

Characters and Vocal Performances

Kevin Spacey was also apparently considered for the role of Sinbad before Russell Crowe, but thankfully they didn’t go down that route. Due to the isolated nature of voice acting, Brad Pitt did not actually meet Catherina Zeta-Jones in person until the film’s premiere, while she and Michelle Pfeiffer didn’t meet until one morning when they appeared on a talk show together to promote it.

Now, much like the characters in the last couple of DreamWorks films we’ve looked at, these ones aren’t particularly complex. Sinbad is a pretty common type of protagonist in animation – he’s your basic charming rogue, a noble thief much like Aladdin or Flynn Rider. I’m not going to worry about comparing him with earlier versions of the character because frankly, I’m not that familiar with any of them and anyway it’s irrelevant to how he’s portrayed here.

We follow Sinbad in his attempts to steal a particular treasure called the Book of Peace, which is of sufficient worth that he and his crew will be able to retire should they manage to get it. Unluckily for Sinbad, a couple of spanners are thrown in the works in the forms of Proteus and Eris; the former is an old friend of Sinbad’s who puts up a valiant fight for the book and appeals to the pirate’s better nature, while the latter is the Goddess of Chaos who’s just there to mess with things for kicks. After Eris’s sea monster drags Sinbad below the sea, he encounters the goddess himself and is offered unimaginable riches, on the condition that he bring the Book of Peace to her instead.

Initially, Sinbad agrees to this, which isn’t surprising. In these early scenes, he is established as a “black-hearted thief,” someone selfish and highly egotistical who won’t even let an old friendship get in the way of his next prize. Eris seems to be banking on this, no doubt planning to kill Sinbad once he reaches her realm with the book – but she’s not fazed in the slightest when Sinbad has second thoughts upon reaching Syracuse, the book’s destination. There, Sinbad is suddenly confronted with another blast from his past: Marina, a beautiful young ambassador and Proteus’s fiancée. The sight of her extinguishes his resolve and he rounds up his crew to leave… but Eris isn’t done yet.

In one of the film’s most inventive scenes, Eris playfully steals the book for herself while framing Sinbad for the theft in a disguise. The soldiers soon capture the real Sinbad and are prepared to execute him, until Proteus steps in on his old pal’s behalf. Having decided to believe Sinbad’s claim that he’s been framed, he offers the sailor a surprising deal – if he can make it to Tartarus and steal the book back from Eris, he will be spared, but until he returns, Proteus himself will take his place in jail. If Sinbad does not return with the book in ten days, Proteus will be put to death. Sinbad is incredulous, amazed that Proteus would do something so stupid, but the prince has more faith in his old friend’s character than even Sinbad himself does.

Even with Proteus’s life now on the line, Sinbad is still prepared to slip away and leave him to his fate – but then, he discovers Marina hiding out in his cabin. The ambassador is no fool and always suspected Sinbad would try to get out of the mission, so she’s snuck aboard as a form of insurance on her fiancée’s life; by needling Sinbad’s conscience (and supplying him generously with jewels), she finally gets him to agree to set out for Tartarus.

From here on out, we get a long action-packed adventure during which Sinbad learns a great deal about both Marina and himself. Marina quickly proves her capabilities and becomes a valuable member of the crew (the rest of whom take to her instantly), but Sinbad stubbornly holds out with his bad attitude, criticising her work and insulting her. Marina, however, won’t stand for any of that and gives as good as she gets – they’re both feisty and headstrong, but their butting of egos does Sinbad good and he begins to lower his guard.

Eventually, after a particularly close call with a giant roc bird, the pair begin to confide in one another for the first time and realise they have a few things in common, like a shared love of the sea. Sinbad has begun to take the mission more seriously by this point and realises that the material wealth offered by Eris is not what he really wants – deep down, he’s a good person and could never be happy knowing he left Proteus to die. Complicating matters is his attraction to Marina, however, which is in fact not a new development; as he explains to her, part of the reason he left Syracuse for a life of piracy in the first place was out of jealousy that Proteus was going to be her husband. What a mess.

Flynn Rider makes for an apt comparison, because both characters seem to suffer from a kind of inferiority complex beneath their dashing exteriors. Flynn became a thief because he grew up poor, and it’s implied that the same might be true of Sinbad – while he and Proteus always got along fine as kids, Marina’s arrival served as solid proof of his “unworthiness” because, destined to marry the prince, her presence left Sinbad feeling like he wasn’t good enough to earn her love.

Things come to a head in Tartarus, where Eris seems mildly impressed that they have made it so far. She taunts Sinbad and tries to get inside his head, making him feel guilty for “moving in on” Marina while Proteus awaits execution in Syracuse, but Sinbad is still focused on returning the Book of Peace. Before she will relinquish it, Eris gives him a test of character – she wants to know if he would go back without it, even though that would mean certain death. After she gives her word not to cheat him, Sinbad boldly asserts that he would indeed return, but Eris calls him a liar and throws him and Marina out of Tartarus. The two share a heart to heart in which Marina begs him not to go back bookless because she loves him (apparently), but Sinbad has had enough of running away and refuses to leave Proteus to die.

In the nick of time, Sinbad arrives and puts a stop to Proteus’s execution, calmly offering himself up in exchange as agreed. Proteus, though surprised, is pleased that his faith in Sinbad has been vindicated, but he and Marina are horrified at the thought that he will now be punished so severely after displaying such strength of character. However, they haven’t reckoned on Eris, whose bargain with Sinbad has now been broken – his return proves that he wasn’t lying to her, so she shows up, furious, to reluctantly give him the book as promised.

Proteus and Syracuse are now safe, but there’s still the little matter of the romance to wrap up. Sinbad, having grown into a more mature person over the course of the adventure, is prepared to sail off into the sunset without her, but Proteus is gallant enough to end his engagement to Marina after realising how she feels about Sinbad. She sneaks back onto his ship and surprises him, ready to set sail side by side for adventures unknown.

As a protagonist, there’s not a whole lot of depth to Sinbad and his arc is quite simple, but he’s still a likeable enough chap – after all, he is being voiced by Brad Pitt, of all people. I do get a bit tired of that old cliché where a guy and girl who can’t stand each other end up falling in love, but I’ve seen it done worse than here. Ultimately, Sinbad is proven to have a good heart and a strong character, even if he does need to be reminded of it every now and then, so seeing him free and in love at the end is a satisfying conclusion to his tale.

For the lead female role of Marina, a great number of actresses were considered before Zeta-Jones scooped the part; these included Susan Sarandon, Catherine Keener, Teri Hatcher, Sandra Bullock, Reese Witherspoon, Lisa Rinna, Jessica Lundy and even Madonna, to name just a few. Marina is introduced to us in a position of authority, as the official ambassador of Thrace (which in modern terms would likely make her either Greek, Turkish or Bulgarian) and as the fiancée of Prince Proteus. She has all the qualities you’d expect of such a person, being polite and sociable while also turning her keen eye and sharp wit to any situation she encounters.

When her fiancée makes the rather naïve bargain with his life, Marina isn’t about to just stand by and trust Sinbad to do the right thing. It’s just as well, too, as she turns out to have been quite right in her judgement of his character – he had no intentions of getting the Book of Peace before she caught him! Although Sinbad tries to outwit her, she knows just how to get through to a man like him and quickly secures passage for herself on his ship with a bagful of fine jewels (much like the ones she used to ingratiate herself with the rest of the crew before sneaking aboard).

In case any of them had any doubts about having a woman aboard, she pitches in with the work alongside them and soon proves herself a capable sailor – even saving the lives of the entire crew when she is the only one able to resist the alluring calls of the sirens they encounter. While the rest of the crew welcome her into their midst, Sinbad’s pettiness gets on her nerves, especially when he remains too proud even to thank her for saving him. Stung by her anger, Sinbad eventually returns the favour by rescuing her from the vicious roc, after which they begin to warm up to one another.

Now, this is a good point to bring up that problem I’ve had with the female characters in the last couple of DreamWorks films, because it applies here too. Much like Chel and Rain, Marina is a great character in some respects – she’s strong, smart, self-sufficient and popular with her comrades, making herself a valuable addition to Sinbad’s crew and a good role model for kids in the audience to root for. However, it cannot be ignored that her identity as a character is tied to being the love interest of two different men; she’s the only woman of significance in the film besides Eris and, the one time the two of them speak, it’s about Sinbad. Again like Chel, we get a hint of the independent life Marina has led as an ambassador away from Proteus and Sinbad, but it’s only ever a hint, because once the film itself gets going, she is reduced to being an object of affection.

It’s very frustrating. Why must the heroine always, always fall in love with the “bad boy” lead? Why must she always be tangled up in some sort of love triangle? Why must every “red-blooded male” in the cast end up besotted with her? Even with all her capability, she’s still being objectified and has to put up with a whole lot of sexism from Sinbad early on; granted, she handles it with dignity, but what sense does it make that she would ever develop feelings for a man who’s treated her so rudely? I get the idea… she sees the “real him” beneath his brash façade and they bond over their love of sailing, but still, she seems to get over Proteus awfully quickly. Just saying.

The love triangle is not only unnecessary, it’s also awkwardly handled. I didn’t like the plot point that Marina (or more specifically, her beauty) is what came between Sinbad and Proteus when they were young – it’s that same old trope again, the “blood brothers”, friends to the end, broken apart by a “meddlesome female”. The boys could be such good friends if only those blasted girls and their bewitching good looks would keep out of it, right? Sigh.

Oh well. All I can say is that Marina leaves me with exactly the same frustrations as the previous DreamWorks female leads – she’s an engaging character in her own right, but she feels mishandled and stifled, always chained to the men in her life with little opportunity to really shine (except for in the siren scene, I love that bit). By the end of the film, it’s implied that Marina is giving up her role as an ambassador in favour of a life of romance on the high seas with Sinbad – not necessarily a bad thing if that’s truly what she wants, but it does frustrate me to see her sacrificing her career for a guy she’s only known a few days.

This guy doesn’t get off too lightly, either. Prince Proteus was almost played by the likes of Jeff Goldblum, Robin Williams, Paul Bettany, David Arquette, Keith Carradine, Daniel Stern, Jean-Claude van Damme and Alan Alda before Joseph Fiennes, then at the peak of his popularity, took on the role.

Proteus is your typical “nice guy”, and I don’t mean that in the toxic, passive-aggressive way that modern readers might think of the term – I’m talking a genuine, true-blue saint whose kindness often borders on stupidity. While he is shown to be a skilled fighter and a fearless protector, he’s loyal to a fault and far too trusting for his own good, even coming across as rather naïve at times (judging by his design, he’s probably only supposed to be somewhere in his twenties and has likely led a sheltered life).

When he first encounters Sinbad again after years apart, Proteus is wary but rather pleased. He genuinely trusts Sinbad and can’t believe that the pirate would try to rob him, but Sinbad tries nevertheless until he’s interrupted by Eris’s sea monster attacking the ship. He and Proteus team up to help the others defeat it, fighting together just like they used to and reigniting the sparks of their old friendship until Sinbad is pulled underwater by the monster.

When Sinbad later shows up at Proteus’s party, celebrating the arrival of the Book of Peace, the prince is still being sociable and introducing him to his guests, even while Sinbad secretly orders his crew to “get to work” finding the book again. Only the sight of Marina and the announcement of her engagement to Proteus turns Sinbad away – but that’s just the way Eris wants it.

Just before Eris commits her theft of the book, Proteus and Marina take a moment of privacy together out on the terrace, where the prince tells his betrothed that he wishes for her happiness and does not want to pressure her into the marriage. Their union is apparently of the arranged, political sort, but Proteus doesn’t consider this reason enough to get married and wants to ensure Marina is really interested in him, so he proposes to her again on a personal level. She still seems more than happy to go ahead with it, but before she can agree, Proteus’s father calls her away for assistance with the other delegates (the one time we see her getting to use her ambassadorial skills).

Then comes the framing of Sinbad and Proteus’s declaration of substitution. Marina is furious with Sinbad for putting Proteus in this position, but Proteus continues to trust his old friend against all logic. Even later, when his father Dymas arrives one night to bust him out of jail, Proteus remains steadfast and law-abiding, reassuring his father that Sinbad will return and refusing to sneak out, even though nobody would really object to seeing the popular prince escape.

Luckily, it is precisely this blind faith – along with a little prodding from Marina – which awakens Sinbad’s more honourable side, so he does eventually return to Syracuse to save Proteus, albeit with only seconds to spare. It’s worth noting the disappointment in Proteus’s face at his execution, when he really believes Sinbad isn’t going to turn up; his whole worldview has come under threat as he didn’t believe anyone could be so heartless, so it’s deeply satisfying to see his faith justified when Sinbad appears at last.

With the angry appearance of Eris moments later, Sinbad’s story is vindicated and the thief becomes a hero, but Proteus is perceptive enough to realise why the sailor looks so downcast even after winning the glory of Syracuse. In perhaps the most “nice guy” move of his whole arc, Proteus puts Marina’s feelings first and graciously agrees to end their engagement – with no hard feelings – so she can be with the man she truly loves. I may have my issues with this whole setup, but I can’t deny it; Proteus is a great guy for doing that, and I only wish he could have had some kind of happy resolution to his own arc in the end, because he deserves it.

Oooh, now here we go – don’t you just love a good villain? To voice the seductive Goddess of Chaos, the filmmakers considered Angelina Jolie, Jessica Alba, Christina Ricci, Elizabeth Hurley, Jennifer Beals, Molly Ringwald, Wendie Malick and Lena Olin, but they finally chose Michelle Pfeiffer, who was of course a veteran of The Prince of Egypt. In that film, she played perhaps the best of the hand-drawn female leads at DreamWorks, Tzipporah, but Eris could hardly be more different.

The goddess is the first character we meet, basking in her realm of chaos, and it is she who initiates the plot by meddling with Sinbad and Proteus. In a way, she’s just doing her job – her ultimate goal is revealed to be disrupting the monarchy of Syracuse so that it can “tumble into glorious chaos”, and her whole scheme is designed to simply create as much trouble as possible. She makes numerous deals with Sinbad, all aiming to disgrace Proteus; first she invites Sinbad to steal the book for her and bring it to Tartarus, but when he decides against this, she takes it herself and frames him, then tries everything she can to kill him before he can reach her so Proteus will be killed.

When Sinbad shows up in Tartarus against all odds, she then tries to swindle him out of the book with a bogus test of character, but he’s smart enough to secure her word that she won’t trick him first, which proves important later on. In the end, Eris’s fatal mistake is that she underestimates Sinbad’s character, believing him to be just as “selfish” and “unprincipled” as she is; when Sinbad proves himself the better person, she is forced to give up the Book of Peace at last, though not without intense frustration. Of course, being a goddess, there’s no defeating her, so she simply swans off into the ether to cause more havoc elsewhere.

I may have my problems with the rest of the cast, but I adore Eris. Sister of Aphrodite and the Muses in Greek mythology, she was always going to be a fascinating antagonist, but the skilful portrayal of her by both Pfeiffer and the animators gives her the air of a classic Disney villain, which can only ever be a good thing.

She’s playful, seductive and very compelling because she so thoroughly enjoys what she’s doing, but she’s never hammy and is thus able to feel more threatening, like Maleficent. Another thing she shares with the “Mistress of All Evil” is her simple goal of spreading chaos and misfortune; these ladies never needed any concrete plan or end goal but simply enjoyed causing trouble, something that 2014’s Maleficent completely failed to understand. You could also make a comparison with Hades, another witty and malevolent god who can’t exactly be defeated, but who can be outsmarted.

After the depth and complexity of Rameses, the ham and bombast of Tzekel-Kan, and the quiet cruelty of the Colonel, Eris made the perfect compliment to DreamWorks’s earlier hand-drawn villains with her teasing, mischievous manner; the studio might not always get their leads right, but they sure know how to make a good villain.

For the role of Kale, Sinbad’s right-hand man, the voices of Clarke Peters, Mykelti Williamson, David Alan Grier and Michael Clarke Duncan were all considered (hm, that last one could have been good), but I think the final choice of Dennis Haysbert was a strong one. He lends Kale a degree of warm reassurance just right for a trusted advisor, but he’s also great at selling the big guy’s odd moments of understated comedy… especially when under the influence of the sirens (see below).

“Come with me… we’ll speak of love.”

In addition to helping Sinbad run the ship, Kale also seems to help him run his life as his closest confidante. Like many such friend/sidekick characters, his main role in the film is to act as Sinbad’s conscience, nagging him whenever the pirate’s ego threatens to get the better of him and reminding him of his responsibilities to other people. He takes a liking to Marina from the start and is evidently a bit of a “shipper on deck”, encouraging Sinbad to treat her more respectfully and gleefully siding with her whenever the two have a fight.

Kale also often serves as the voice of reason amidst the crazy crew, keeping them on their toes and ensuring everyone is doing their share. With the exception of Luca, Kale seems to be one of the oldest members of the crew and has probably been sailing with Sinbad for quite a while; Sinbad is even prepared to relinquish command of the ship to his first mate should anything happen to him in Tartarus. It’s good to know Sinbad has someone like Kale watching his back – he’s a sterling first mate and a good friend, and the crew owe him a lot.

Rat

Luca

Jed

Jin and Li

Grum and Chum

The rest of the crew aren’t given much time to distinguish themselves from one another, reminding me somewhat of the crew of the RLS Legacy in Treasure Planet. Rat, the lookout, is the most notable among them, a wiry Italian chap who spends much of his screen-time hanging upside-down from the rigging and who seems the fondest of Marina, after Sinbad. This feeling is made stronger when she saves him from the clutches of the sirens, after his precarious position puts him in danger of being pulled overboard and drowned by them.

The others include Luca, an old man who was almost played by John Leguizamo (but presumably the part wasn’t deemed big enough to warrant this casting in the end), Jed, a surly weapon-hoarder, Jin and Li, a couple of Asian shipmates who enjoy betting, and Grum and Chum… who must just be there to make up the numbers, as they have almost nothing to do at all and are played by the same actor. They’re a ragtag lot and most only get a handful of lines, but they’re all loyal to Sinbad and never let their antiquated superstitions get the better of them when he needs them. Who knows how much booty they’ve plundered together over the years… It would have been nice to learn a little more about them and their time with Sinbad, but what can you do – the film is only so long, and the many action sequences left little room for development of the supporting cast.

Naturally, no animated film attempting to cash in on the Disney formula would be complete without a goofy animal sidekick, which in this case means Spike, a rather slobbery bulldog belonging to Sinbad. Apparently, the reason he’s featured so prominently is because he proved more popular than Sinbad himself in an early screen test, thus prompting the filmmakers to add in seven new scenes featuring him before the film was released.

He’s enjoyable enough for what he is, and I did like the dynamic he developed with Marina after Sinbad forced them to share a “bunk” in the hold. He helps her save the crew from the sirens and takes part in numerous other battles throughout the film, as well as helping her and Kale “persuade” Sinbad to do the right thing when they have to. The last we see of him, he’s catapulting himself smack into the middle of Sinbad and Marina’s happily-ever-after kiss, determined to “celebrate” with them with a good slobbery kiss of his own.

The only other character of significance is Dymas, the king of Syracuse and Proteus’s father. Seasoned actor Timothy West was able to make the most of his limited scenes, giving Dymas a dry wit that makes him a match for Eris when it comes to understated comedy. He’s more pragmatic than his rather idealistic son and has no faith in Sinbad at all, eyeing him suspiciously as he enters the party and immediately suspecting him of stealing the Book of Peace after it goes missing (to be fair, you can’t blame him as Sinbad had tried to steal it once that day already).

Still, he’s a caring father and is willing to risk his position just to break Proteus out of jail, so determined is he not to lose him. Like Marina, Dymas doesn’t believe for a moment that Sinbad will come back and despairs at his son’s optimism, but he respects Proteus enough to let the boy make his own decisions and lets the matter drop. At the execution, he turns away in agony as the axe rises above his son’s head, but he’s deeply relieved and gratified when Sinbad arrives in time to spare him. He accepts that he was wrong about Sinbad with good grace and apologises, even if he still doesn’t necessarily like the little scamp.

There’s also an unnamed Tower Guard who becomes the victim of Eris’s thievery when she sneaks in to steal the Book of Peace from under his nose. By using a Sinbad “disguise” and having him witness it, she sets up the framing which she hopes will result in Proteus substituting himself in Sinbad’s place, then trusts that Sinbad will leave him to die and thus destroy the monarchy. The Guard isn’t exactly a fool and is prepared to defend the book with his life, but considering he’s up against a literal goddess, he is understandably outmatched and quickly gets knocked out. For a moment, it even looks like Eris is going to kill him as she poises Sinbad’s dagger above him, but she only intends to leave it as evidence so Sinbad knows what she’s done.

 

Animation

What a sad moment… the last ever hand-drawn DreamWorks film! Wouldn’t it be something if they were the ones to bring it back to the mainstream, rather than Disney? Not that that’s going to happen of course; DreamWorks don’t lead, they follow.

Anyway, the animation supervisors for Sinbad included the legendary James Baxter, along with Simon Otto and Jakob Hjort Jensen, while Marina was handled by William Salazar, another skilled artist. Dan Wagner and his team handled Eris (and they deserve serious credit for their achievements with her), with Rodolphe Guenoden supervising Proteus and Bruce Ferriz handling Kale. Then there were Steve Horrocks for Rat, Serguei Kouchnerov for Spike, Fabio Lignini for Dymas, Simon Otto (again) for Jin and Li, Pres Romanillos for the rest of the crew, Michelle Cowart (the only female supervisor) for the sirens and Michael Spokas for Cetus the sea monster. Fabrice Joubert is also listed as a supervisor, but I’m not sure who he handled.

Apparently, Sinbad was the first film to be fully produced on the Linux operating system, according to Wired magazine. The animators used over 250 HP workstations loaded with Red Hat Linux and custom animation software to render the film. As with the previous efforts, the aim here was to push that “tradigital convergence” even further, incorporating as much CGI as possible to try to tap into the perceived market for it at the time, despite being a mostly hand-drawn film. Despite the film’s failure, the directors still speak proudly about the animation to this day (as well they should), so at least they were able to enjoy the experience, even if it didn’t turn out the way they hoped.

The clear highlights of the film’s animation are Eris and the sirens. For all the fuss about the improvements in CGI technology on this film, it’s telling that a hand-drawn element is one of the best-remembered aspects of it today. Being a goddess, Eris has a unique way of moving around that makes her utterly fascinating to watch, always shifting and billowing like a cloud of vapour, never staying in one place too long and constantly moving and changing. Her hair alone would give Pocahontas’s a run for its money with its sweeping, sensual undulations and you can tell the animators enjoyed working with her from the many inventive ways they use her, such as in the book-stealing scene. The hours it must have taken to animate her are unthinkable, but the results are more than worth all the effort – she’s exquisite.

The sirens are perhaps the best of the CGI elements, at least in my opinion. Their movements were based on rhythmic gymnastics, ballet and modern dance, and they’re integrated better into their scene than any of the other computer-generated monsters are; perhaps it’s because they seem to be made of water, which allows them a certain texture that keeps them from sticking out too much. Their eerie presence adds a great deal of atmosphere to the scene, making it the most effective of the monster encounters in the film.

The roc isn’t too bad in some shots, just a little blocky and sharp-edged, but Cetus is undeniably dreadful. It was certainly ambitious to feature such a massive CGI creature so prominently in such a long scene, but the fact is that he hasn’t aged well at all. He doesn’t even look like he’s part of the same world as the characters he’s fighting, although you could make the clever argument that since he’s the “pet” of the gods, he really isn’t of their world in the first place. Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate how difficult computer animation is and was, but DreamWorks were incorporating CGI much better in their own films before this, so there’s really no excuse. Maybe it was the creature’s slimy skin or the many tentacles that made him so difficult to render, who knows?

 

Plot

To write the film, DreamWorks brought in John Logan, best known at the time for Gladiator (2000) and future writer of The Aviator (2004) and Hugo (2011). He was joined by head of story Jennifer Yuh Nelson, who would go on to become the first solo female director on an animated film from a major studio with her work on Kung Fu Panda 2 in 2011.

Pythias et Damon, chez Denys le tyran by Jean Alphonse Roehn, 1827

The core of the film’s story seems to have been based on the Greek legend of Damon and Pythias, as told by Aristoxenus, Cicero, Diodorus Siculus and others. In the original tale, Pythias is accused of plotting treason against the despised ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius I, but unlike in this film, Pythias himself suggests the substitution arrangement, asking that his friend Damon be held hostage until he returns from settling his affairs. (Damn, surprised Damon agrees to this). Pythias does, thankfully, return, much to Dionysius’ amazement – the king is softened by the love and trust displayed by the two friends, so he frees them both.

In addition, certain other names and elements are borrowed from Greek mythology as well; for instance, Dymas, king of Phrygia, was originally the grandson of Proteus, who was a deity known as Homer’s “old man of the sea” and who symbolised flexibility and versatility. Cetus, meanwhile, is a Latinised version of the Ancient Greek word for a sea monster, nowadays better known as a constellation.

Sinbad During Sixth Voyage by Rene Bull, 1898

It has to be said that the version of Sinbad presented here is only superficially related to the original one. That sailor (whose name is sometimes spelled “Sindbad”) was supposed to be from Baghdad of the early Abbasid Caliphate, around the eighth and ninth centuries CE. His seven voyages took him from Africa to Asia – rather than just going around the Mediterranean – and he witnessed many more monsters and supernatural phenomena.

While the film can be forgiven for taking liberties with the minutiae of the story for the sake of brevity (as Hercules did), some critics did not take kindly to the perceived “whitewashing” of Arabic literature. This version draws much more heavily from Greek myths than from the Arabian Nights, prompting outspoken advocate of Arabic culture Jack Shaheen to complain that the film removes Sinbad from his Arabic context. He believed that “the studio feared financial and possibly political hardships if they made the film’s hero Arab,” going on to point out that “If no attempt is made to challenge negative stereotypes about Arabs, the misperceptions continue. It’s regrettable that the opportunity wasn’t taken to change them, especially in the minds of young people.”

Shaheen even stated that he’d spoken with Katzenberg himself at one point, to try to convince him to include some references to Arabic culture in the final film. Katzenberg apparently “didn’t seem surprised that {he} mentioned it, which presumably means that it was discussed early on in the development of the film.”

Unfortunately, we can probably pinpoint what changed – during production, in late 2001, the infamous 9/11 terror attacks occurred across the country in New York, and the event sadly tarnished Arabs’ public image in the USA for years afterwards. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, the studio was likely scared of pushing a film with an Arab lead, yet it was precisely the sort of time when one was sorely needed to challenge the negative beliefs that the attacks sparked. I agree with Shaheen – this was a missed opportunity.

What a revolting image…

Outside of this, the writing for the film is generally straightforward, although I still take issue with that love triangle business. However, one glaring inaccuracy I noticed were the repeated references to Fiji, the island paradise where Sinbad wants to retire with his crew after stealing the Book of Peace. The time period in the film may be vague, but surely it’s far too early for the characters to be aware of Fiji, a land undiscovered by Europeans until the late seventeenth century? Kale also makes a reference to the Fijian people being cannibals which, while true, is not believed to have been as widespread as missionaries of the nineteenth century made it out to be (although it certainly was a part of Fijian life; just look up Ratu Udre Udre).

 

Cinematography

Whatever else you can say about it, nobody can say Sinbad doesn’t have great visuals. All of these early DreamWorks efforts look fantastic, with this one being helmed by production designer Raymond Zibach. This was his first time in a role he would later reprise for the celebrated Kung Fu Panda films, and he was joined by art directors Seth Engstrom and David James.

They incorporated elements of Venetian and Islamic architecture as well as Arabic calligraphy into the design of Syracuse (which looks nothing like the real Sicilian city, admittedly). Their version of the city has a more Byzantine feel to it with its domes and crosses; the city’s central temple vaguely resembles the Turkish Hagia Sophia, with none of the marble columns or grand amphitheatres of ancient Greek architecture. Of course, Marina is said to be from Thrace, a historical region encompassing modern Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria, so the artists were drawing on an amalgam of different cultures. There’s also a reference to the “Twelve Cities,” a coalition of Italian cities otherwise known as the Dodecapolis which shared a common Etruscan language and culture.

Some of the design work on the action sequences and set pieces is impressive, particularly the gigantic island-like fish and the eerie, shifting world of Tartarus (which seemed to have been inspired in part by China’s terracotta warriors and put me in mind of that old Shelley poem Ozymandias).

However, I couldn’t help noticing how similar the film’s aesthetic was to so many other animated films of the time – there was a strange trend at the time for vaguely futuristic, steampunk-style adventure stories like Titan A.E., Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet. Audiences don’t seem to have cared for the style; it can’t be a coincidence that all four of these films did terribly at the box office.

 

Soundtrack

The filmmakers considered various composers to score this – David Newman, John Debney and Christophe Beck, for instance – but they all turned it down. Harry Gregson-Williams had collaborated with other composers on earlier DreamWorks films, so this was his first solo effort for one of their projects. He worked to create a strong action theme while also incorporating some “ethnic” instruments to give it “flavour” (in his words, at least). Unlike the earlier hand-drawn films, this one is not a musical in either a diegetic or non-diegetic sense, so there are no songs to discuss – this will be a short section!

Eris’s theme stood out to me the most, since it so accurately captured a sense of her character; playful and rather sinister, dancing from woodwind to brass and backed by a rather haunting choir. Elsewhere, the music is fairly typical of this sort of swashbuckling story, lively and frantic to compliment the fights but with quieter moments on the strings for the romantic side of things. The sirens section also has a great start; you can hear the choir murmuring Sinbad’s name beneath the ominous strings, it’s deliciously creepy.

Among the voice cast, Michelle Pfeiffer is the obvious highlight as Eris, although Pitt and Zeta-Jones both do fine jobs as well (even if Marina’s accent is a tad inconsistent). Dennis Haysbert is as good as you’d expect with his rich, calming tones, but there’s not much to speak of outside the four leads as everybody else is basically a bit-part. Joseph Fiennes was the least interesting of the four to me, but then given the rather bland nature of Proteus as a character, I suppose this was fitting. He makes him sound younger than his design suggests, helping to convey that sense of naïveté that pricks Sinbad’s conscience.

 

Final Verdict –

The first thing I want to note here is this film’s suspicious similarity to a more obscure one called Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists. This was an early computer-animated effort made in 1997, but not released until 2000; Los Angeles was one of only three cities it played in, so there’s a good chance the DreamWorks execs could have seen it, or at least heard of it. You can’t help wondering, given Katzenberg’s track record and the timing of the productions, whether this film was… “inspired” by that one? Hm…

Either way, when 2003 rolled around, the usual marketing ploys were used to try and boost the film’s chances. A tie-in PC game was released by Atari under close supervision of director Patrick Gilmore, which came out shortly before the home media release. Burger King released a line of promotional toys, each of which came with a “Constellation Card”, while Hasbro debuted their own line of Sinbad action figures as part of its G.I. Joe brand.

Unfortunately, this was all in vain. Sixteen years on in 2019, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is now best remembered in infamy as one of the worst box office bombs in history (and not just in animation). DreamWorks were already having a bad year as it was, but this was the icing on the cake; Sinbad is estimated to have lost a staggering $125,000,000, failing so catastrophically that it nearly destroyed the entire studio. For comparison, Don Bluth’s similarly disastrous Titan A.E. lost about $100,000,000, future DreamWorks bomb Rise of the Guardians lost $87,000,000 and two of Disney’s worst bombs, The Good Dinosaur and Treasure Planet, lost about $85,000,000 each. Sinbad brought a whole new meaning to the word “failure”.

While it’s hardly DreamWorks’s best effort, the poor film really didn’t deserve to die such a cruel death as this. Katzenberg, whose feelings towards hand-drawn animation were already ambivalent at best, famously stated that, “I think the idea of a traditional story being told using traditional animation is likely a thing of the past.” Sadly, this proved all too true as the last few pieces of it from the major studios all sank without trace; the following year, Disney’s Home on the Range also suffered from an underwhelming response, prompting them to follow DreamWorks in abandoning the medium altogether (although they did return to it briefly down the line).

Reviews of Sinbad itself were very mixed, to say the least, although good old Roger Ebert came through as usual with a little support, giving it three-and-a-half stars out of four and concluding that it was “another worthy entry in the recent renaissance of animation, and in the summer that has already given us Finding Nemo, it’s a reminder that animation is the most liberating of movie genres, freed of gravity, plausibility, and even the matters of lighting and focus. There is no way that Syracuse could exist outside animation, and as we watch it, we are sailing over the edge of the human imagination.” Yes mate, thank you for that.

DreamWorks hurried the film out onto DVD and VHS in late 2003 and promptly tried to forget it ever existed until just this summer, when it finally got a Blu-ray release. This followed a game of pass-the-parcel regarding the film rights, which went back to DreamWorks from Paramount in 2014, then to Twentieth Century Fox, and then to Universal in 2018; the latter were responsible for finally giving it the high-quality release it deserved, although they dropped the interactive Cyclops Island short from the original media release. Much like The Road to El Dorado, Sinbad was originally meant to kick off a series of sequels, but once again, its underperformance killed that idea in the cradle and the characters have never been heard from again.

 

As for me, I’m very conflicted on this one. I don’t have any nostalgia for it as it was the last of the four hand-drawn DreamWorks films that I saw, just a few years ago, and it’s definitely my least favourite of the bunch. It plays fast and loose with both the original Arabic tale and the myths and history which inspired its aesthetic, while also cramming in too many action scenes for the run-time and failing to properly develop its potentially interesting cast.

On the other hand, it’s far better than its box office performance would suggest, featuring some mesmerising animation and sumptuous set pieces all bolstered by a rousing adventure score, as well as some impressive performances from a celebrity cast largely unused to voice acting. Basically, it has moments of excellence but is hampered by a lot of formulaic nonsense, particularly the ridiculous love triangle. Flawed, certainly, but far from the worst DreamWorks have produced (seriously, just look at Shark Tale from the following year).

Like many other animated fantasies from the time, its reputation has steadily improved over the years as its original fanbase have aged. Many who did see it as children appreciated it and are now introducing it to the next generation, so even if DreamWorks are still ashamed of it, Sinbad’s legacy will live on in some form. And hey, at least it earned a concrete place for itself in animation history… albeit for a terrible reason.

 

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the review. I’m sorry it was so late; the frustrating lack of resources on this film coupled with a heatwave led me into one of my worst bouts of procrastination in a good while. I guess I just didn’t have the enthusiasm for this one that I thought I did! Still, it was too significant to ignore, as one of the most infamous nails in the coffin for mainstream hand-drawn animation – I’m only glad it’s finally finished.

I’ll be releasing one more Disney book review next week, and I’ve decided to follow that with my Rugrats review, which I’m going to try and keep as condensed as possible (I’ll save more in-depth explorations of shows for individual episode reviews down the line). After that, we’ll come to some classic Don Bluth favourites, then eventually we’ll move on to Ghibli. Until next time, take care and staaay animated!

My Rating – 3/5

 

 

References
I consulted my own books to research for this review, as well as some standard web sources:
The Art of DreamWorks Animation (2014) by Ramin Zahed
By DreamWorks – Movieposter.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12430658 – credit for poster
By Eloi-Firmin Féron – low resolution scan of unknown origin, uploaded 2013, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30306878 – credit for Damon and Pythias painting
By René Bull – http://classics-illustrated.com/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19150394 – credit for Sinbad illustration
https://medium.com/@cjwerleman/why-i-fight-islamophobia-c2779bb40a2c – credit for Islamophobia image
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLa7xe5GTWw – a video discussing the film’s role in DreamWorks history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biggest_box-office_bombs – reference for the figures of animated box office bombs
https://theculturetrip.com/pacific/fiji/articles/a-brief-history-of-cannibalism-in-fiji/ – reference for cannibalism in Fiji
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damon_and_Pythias – Wiki page for Damon and Pythias legend
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymas_of_Phrygia – Wiki page for Dymas of Phrygia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinbad_the_Sailor – Wiki page for Sinbad the Sailor
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/jul/23/iraq.world – an article about the “whitewashing” issue
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinbad:_Legend_of_the_Seven_Seas – Wiki page
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165982/ – IMDB profile