I would like to just take a minute and go on a bit of a rant about CGI versus traditional animation. Released in 2003 Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas garnered a mostly tepid response, both critically and finically. Following the failure of Fox's Titan A.E. (2000) and Disney's Atlantis (2001), Sinbad proved to be the "last straw" of sorts for traditional animation. Unfortunately many people mistook the death of this "Katzenberger" style of traditional animation as the death of the medium itself. While the signal being sent to Hollywood was "we want different stories, like Pixar", all they heard was "we want movies that look like Pixar", thus traditional animation was all but abandoned. Exacerbating the situation was the fact that CGI films were getting a finical boost from their choice of animation method (how else do you explain the success of Ice Age?). This is because average moviegoers mistook the "new and shiny" look of CGI for fresh storytelling, a misconception that did not last long. Once the novelty of CGI wore off studios started seeing revenue decline. Why? That's easy, because people got tired of seeing generic looking, crappy stories in CG, just like they got tired of seeing generic looking, crappy stories in traditional animation a decade prior. Good stories are the key to sustained success, if you give people good stories consistently (Pixar) you will be rewarded with loyalty, this goes for both CGI and traditionally animated films. If you give people bad stories however (Shrek 3), you'll see a huge dip in box office returns down the road (Shrek 4), regardless of the medium. So stop trying to trick people into watching your movies with the latest fad and focus on telling good stories with a unique vision, otherwise we're just going to repeat this cycle again with 3D (actually it's already happening so get ready for the inevitable backlash).
Alright, putting that incoherent rant aside, it's time to move on. The story of Sinbad goes ... well you know what? I don't feel like recounting the story of Sinbad so here are the basics. Sinbad is an infamous pirate who used to be best friends with a prince named Proteus. Proteus is engaged to a princess named Marina (arranged marriage), but Sinbad also loves Marina (oh crap). Our bad guy (or gal I guess) is Eris, Goddess of Chaos. Eris wants the "Book of Peace" - an ancient artifact housed in Proteus's kingdom - so she hires Sinbad to steal it. Sinbad changes his mind however and Eris is forced to step in and steal the book herself, framing Sinbad in the process. Once arrested Sinbad tries to explain that he was setup by Eris, but ultimately he is given the death sentence because no one believes him, no one except Proteus that is. Unable to standby and let his friend die, Proteus exercises his right of substitution and takes Sinbad’s punishment upon himself, including the forthcoming execution. The only way to save Proteus is for Sinbad to find and return the Book of Peace, a task he only has ten days to accomplish. Luckily Marina decides to come along and help Sinbad so that she can save her future husband. Sound good? Well it shouldn't because this story is about as interesting as a paint-by-numbers stop sign.
It's hard to know where to begin when discussing the problems with Sinbad's writing. I think I'll start with the characters comprising its Arthurian love triangle. Proteus is a ridiculously abused character. If you merged King Arthur and Duckie from Pretty in Pink, you would get Proteus. In fact, for the rest of this review I will be referring to Proteus as Arthur-Duckie. Arthur-Duckie is the consummate good guy, the one who always does the right thing, never takes anything or anyone for granted and believes in others, even when they don't believe in themselves. While these selfless attributes may seem admirable, the film abuses them in an absurdly cruel way by having the two people closest to Arthur-Duckie walk all over him like a doormat. Don't worry though, he's really understanding about it. The bride-to-be of Arthur-Duckie is Princess Marina. Marina is about a shallow character as I've ever seen in animation. Serving as the films Guinevere, Marina suffers from both cliche and superficial characterization. You see Marina has reservations about settling down and marrying the future king Arthur-Duckie, part of her wants to live a life of adventure on the open seas rather than deal with the daily burdens of being a queen. Unfortunately this message of "follow your heart" comes off as a childish flight of fantasy, the immature dreams of a spoiled rich girl who knows nothing about responsibility. This is a problem because Marina doesn't end up exhibiting any redeeming qualities, instead she just appears selfish and disloyal, hardly a heroine worth rooting for. Then there's our Lancelot, Sinbad. Sinbad and Arthur-Duckie used to be best friends, but ten years ago Sinbad got a look at Arthur-Duckie's betrothed, Marina, and fell instantly in love. Not wanting to suffer the heartache of seeing the two wed - or worse get in the way - Sinbad runs away and takes up a life of piracy. Despite his thieving ways Sinbad is still a good guy at heart though, he just tries to act tough and hide it so people won't notice. Too bad he doesn't have a good woman around to help him open up about his feelings, maybe then he could become the man he was always meant to be (gag). It doesn't take a geniuses to figure out where things go from there - heck this is about a contrived a romance as you'll ever see - but while this predictable love affair is certainly A problem for the film, it's not THE problem. The real problem with Sinbad's love triangle is that the whole film collapses around its hideous execution.
The reason that Sinbad's romance causes so much trouble is that the rest of the story (you know, that whole "Book of Peace" thing) exists solely as a vehicle for it to take place in. In other words the success of the films plot depends entirely on the execution of Sinbad and Mirana's love affair, it's the stories linchpin (the catastrophically defective linchpin). Besides the problems I've already listed (Marina's shallow motivations and Sinbad's cliched "bad boy with a heart of gold" persona) the biggest source of romantic failure in this film is banter. Remember how great those fights between Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd were on "Moon Lighting"? When they would stand toe-to-toe in the middle of the room yelling at one another then storm off and slam the doors to their respective offices, that was great. Well Sinbad tries to use that same sexual tension in its narrative, emphasis on the word "tries". Time and time again Sinbad ineptly dons the role of "obnoxious" and "chauvinistic" pirate determined to get the princesses goat, all the while Marina plays up her irritating "sassy princess" persona complete with the "how dare you" attitude seen in about a bazillion other movies. It's awful. I'm talking groan out loud - you have got to be kidding me - awful. Glaringly scripted and completely unnatural, just about all of the exchanges between Sinbad and Marina play out like a bad sitcom, all that's missing is a laugh track. In the end these pathetic attempts at bickering start a snowball affect beginning with the failure of the banter, then the failure of the romance, and ultimately the failure of the movie. It may seem like I'm putting too much emphasis on the relationship of these two characters, but as I said earlier the "Book of Peace" is just a MacGuffin, its only purpose is to further Sinbad and Marina's romance. When that keystone breaks the whole thing comes crumbling down.
The rest of the films writing is so-so. Some of the exchanges are decent, I even laughed a couple times at the forced humor, but on a whole the film comes across as desperate. The writers just look like they're trying too hard, throwing joke after joke at us hoping that something will stick, not cool. Even Eris's motivational twist at the end of the film feels illogical and counterintuitive. Why would you concoct such an over-elaborate plot to throw Syracuse (Arthur-Duckie's kingdom) into chaos if you can send the whole world into chaos using the "Book of Peace"? That's like a poor person winning the mega-millions lottery, but only upgrading their trailer to a double wide. Anyway, when you get right down to it there's very little to salvage from this story, structurally speaking the pacing is solid, and the plot - for all its faults - is coherent, everything else is an absolute mess.
Visually I would describe Sinbad with three seemingly random words: beautiful, typical and awful. Let's start with the beautiful. The traditional animation in Sinbad is fantastic. From the fluid movement, to the excellent choreography, to the stunning backgrounds (especially Syracuse), Sinbad features expertly crafted 2D animation. Easily the best part of the movie, the only complaint I had regarding the traditional animation was that it looked like a typical Dreamworks film. What I mean by that is Dreamworks used the same basic look for all of its traditionally animated features, especially in regards to the characters. Having just re-watched "The Road to El Dorado" I was able to easily spot similarities in not only the character designs (which were obvious), but in the mannerisms and expressions of the characters as well. Though still beautiful, these visually repetitive renditions made Sinbad look a little inbred, something that rarely occurred at Disney. Still, this is a pretty picky complaint, overall Sinbad's hand drawn animation looked excellent and was the one bright spot in an otherwise ugly film.
So if the 2D animation is beautiful, yet typical, what would the visually awful portion of Sinbad be? Not surprisingly it's the CGI. Some people like to refer to Dreamworks traditional films as "tradigital". This is because the studio used a significant amount of digital imagery in its animated movies, even in scenes where it wasn't necessary. Though this is not a practice I normally approve of, I have to admit that Dreamworks did a good job of merging CGI and hand drawn animation in the past ... until Sinbad that is. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas features some of the ugliest integration of CGI and traditional animation I've ever seen in feature films, the worst offender being a giant squid at the start of the movie. Early in the film Arthur-Duckie is transporting the "Book of Peace" to Syracuse via ship when he is boarded by Sinbad who's - of course - trying to steal the book away from his former friend. This awkward reunion gets cut short by Eris when she sends a giant squid to get the book for herself, thus forcing Arthur-Duckie and Sinbad to work together to fight the beast. From the moment that giant squid smashes his tentacle through the hull of that ship, you can tell this scene is going to be an absolute wreck.
Completely different in style, there was no way for this CGI monstrosity to blend into its traditionally animated surroundings, worse it doesn't even look like the computer animator tried. Part of me wonders if Katzenberg just told the directors to get it done and not worry about how it all turned out. Yes, that's some pretty harsh conjecture, but that's how bad this thing looks. The various monsters encountered later in the film do shape up a little better - though still not good - but it really doesn't matter because the movie gives such a bad impression at the start, you can't get over it. Several things about this irk me: 1) This movie was released in 2003, the art of integrating CGI and cell animation was not a new thing at this time 2) Dreamworks could have done a better job, heck they already did a better job in previous films like the aforementioned "Road to El Dorado" 3) Katzenberg looks like he just gave up on traditional animation by half-assing this aspect of the film, almost as if he wanted to sabotage Sinbad so that he could put an end to traditional animation. Am I being a little bitter here? Probably, but watching studios crap all over the admirable efforts of traditional animators with egregious CGI and formulaic storytelling pushes my buttons every time.
The voice acting from Sinbad neither offended, nor impressed me. Like most animated films of the time, Sinbad features a star studded cast including Brad Pitt (Sinbad), Catherine Zeta Jones (Marina) and Michelle Phifer (Eris). While each of these actors does a respectable job with their role, I didn't feel like anything unique or special was being brought to the table either. The hardest performances to judge are Pitt and Zeta Jones. Given how bad the movies romance is I'm tempted to include both of these actors in my - admittedly - harsh appraisal of the film. Yet when I really think about it I don't feel like they were the problem. Sure, Pitt and Zeta Jones could have had better chemistry, but truth be told their delivery of the films banter wasn't all that bad, it's the material that stunk. I think that if the writing had been better the characters would have worked fine with the voices as is, conversely I don't think that any actor alive could have kept this script from falling flat. Overall the voice acting and music from Sinbad do what they're supposed to, neither really stands out but they don't contribute to the films problems either.
Obviously I'm not recommending Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. Though the traditional animation is good, even its light cannot escape the black hole of suck that is this film. Yes, I'm sure that children (and very simple minded adults) would find Sinbad an enjoyable ride, but this kind of pandering tripe represents everything that was wrong with traditionally animated feature films during the early 2000s. If you're looking for good, family friendly, animation that isn't rendered on a computer, then I recommend: The Iron Giant, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Mulan, Aladdin, Tarzan, anything directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and of course the classic Disney films. Heck I'll even recommend Dreamworks "Price of Egypt" and "The Road to El Dorado", just don't bother with Sinbad, it's better left forgotten.
