Bullet Points: Sinbad of the Seven Seas
Recently, in my town of Columbus, Ohio, we had the Arnold Sports Festival or as we call it, “The Arnold”. Most times it is a guarrantee to run into some familiar faces and seeing Lou Ferrigno has turned into a yearly thing (like seeing my in-laws). This year I thought that I would take in some Ferrigno movies to allow for a conversation starter between the two of us…I guess I should have looked for something a little more positive. Straight from those crazy Italians, here is my review of Sinbad of the Seven Seas.
The Gist: The warrior and adventurer Sinbad, joined by his brave and remarkably diverse comrades must fight against the evil Jaffar and rescue the Princess Alina from his vile clutches before he takes her for his bride.
The Cast: Lou Ferrigno stars as Sinbad as he leads his crew of buddies into the city of Basra (I’ve been there!) and then on a quest to recover a bunch of gems that control something or other to defeat the evil Jaffar. I can’t imagine just how bad the dialogue from Lou must have been because even the dubbed voice that they use for him is awful. Lou is looking massive, and has the hair of a lion but none of that can hide his wooden performance. His crew barely talks. They just follow him around like a bunch of lost puppies. They Asian fighter goes from Chinese to Japanese and the cook never actually cooks anything. Why was he even there? They did have a dwarf with them who also hid in the corner whenever the other guys fought. Alessandra Martines, as the beautiful Princess Alina, needed more screen time as she was one of the few things I liked about this movie.
Jacked Sinbad and his courageous crew.
The Villain: I actually liked John Steiner as Jaffar. He was God-awful at doing everything but he over-acted the shit out of this movie and it made up for the lack of skills of the rest of the cast. I bet given a great script that dude can really get it done. Unfortunately for him, this was not a great script. He was still the best thing about the movie not named Alessandra Martines. Hi assent to the throne was the most peaceful and easy thing in the history of regime change too.
Sadly, Jaffar is probably the best thing about SOTSS.
The Action: I was racking my brain trying to remember a fight scene that didn’t remind me of my home movies of me fighting my friends in the backyard. I actually think that our stuff looked more realistic than some of these fights. There is one scene where they find themselves on an island filled with dead Medieval Knights, who come to life and attack Sinbad and his crew. That entire scene was in slow motion and it lasted far too long. Also the scene where Jaffar traps Sinbad in the magic cage thing is absolutely hilarious. It seemed like the director didn’t know how to do the action scenes so he would just do everything in slow-mo. Sometimes the actors even move in slow-motion which makes zero sense.
There is no short of muscle mass here.
Take it Home:
- Make up your mind: Even though they called him a Chinese Mercenary, they have Hal Yamanouchi’s character listed in the credits as “Samurai”.
- Rape Machine: Jaffar has a machine that will weaken Alina’s will and control her mind.
- Filled with hot air: Sinbad blows up a hot air balloon with nothing but his breath.
- Rogues gallery: Sinbad fights a giant monster turd and a fat green ooze monster who shoots lasers from his hands. Was this movie written by a 5 year old?
- Narration: The entire movie is narrated by a mother reading a book to her daughter. I wonder if the daughter was as disappointed as I was when it was over.
Rating: 1.75/5
Was that a magician or Mike Myers in The Love Guru?
