Remember the genre-defining stop-motion animation in the original 'King Kong'? The filmmakers of 'The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad' did. This film has some of the coolest stop-motion F/X you'll see in any movie. It also has some of the very worst dialogue ever spoken into a microphone. This is not the DVD to rent if you want good acting (there is very little of that) or snappy banter (there is absolutely none of that). Torin Thatcher---as the wicked magician, Sokurah---is the only actor to escape this swashbuckler with any thespianic dignity. Kerwin Mathews' approach to Sinbad is an absolutely unremarkable effort, but you won't want to see this movie for the title character anyway.
The man who SHOULD have been given headlining status was the immortal Ray Harryhausen. A maestro of the obsolete stop-motion technique, Harryhausen was most acclaimed for 'Jason And The Argonauts' (with its epic multi-character skeleton/man sword fight), which came out 5 years later. In 'The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad', he treats us to the sight of a cyclops, a dragon, a giant 2-headed bird, an evil skeleton, and other elaborate creatures. It's the details that count when you're animating figurines one frame at a time. I'd swear the cyclops is grinning & licking his lips when he lashes a hapless intruder to a spit and attempts to roast him over a fire. And you can feel the awesome power at work when the cyclops battles the dragon during the film's exciting climax. Great stuff!
But don't go hunting for this DVD unless you understand that the still-impressive F/X are (along with Bernard Herrmann's oft-imitated score) about the only pluses in this movie. But what pluses! Who cares if Nathan Juran's direction of his actors and the Ken Kolb screenplay made me laugh out loud? The crazy creatures make up for that silliness. If you want to see how Harryhausen paved the way for 'Jurassic Park', 'Star Wars', and 'LOTR', rent this DVD. You'll even get to see a series of documentaries on the disc, with a lengthy piece highlighting most of the F/X master's work.
The man who SHOULD have been given headlining status was the immortal Ray Harryhausen. A maestro of the obsolete stop-motion technique, Harryhausen was most acclaimed for 'Jason And The Argonauts' (with its epic multi-character skeleton/man sword fight), which came out 5 years later. In 'The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad', he treats us to the sight of a cyclops, a dragon, a giant 2-headed bird, an evil skeleton, and other elaborate creatures. It's the details that count when you're animating figurines one frame at a time. I'd swear the cyclops is grinning & licking his lips when he lashes a hapless intruder to a spit and attempts to roast him over a fire. And you can feel the awesome power at work when the cyclops battles the dragon during the film's exciting climax. Great stuff!
But don't go hunting for this DVD unless you understand that the still-impressive F/X are (along with Bernard Herrmann's oft-imitated score) about the only pluses in this movie. But what pluses! Who cares if Nathan Juran's direction of his actors and the Ken Kolb screenplay made me laugh out loud? The crazy creatures make up for that silliness. If you want to see how Harryhausen paved the way for 'Jurassic Park', 'Star Wars', and 'LOTR', rent this DVD. You'll even get to see a series of documentaries on the disc, with a lengthy piece highlighting most of the F/X master's work.