Rent Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage (2014)

Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage review by Michelle Sommerville - Cinema Paradiso

If you want to see a good action film with great acting, amazing special effects, and a coherent story, then this is not the film for you. B-movies are only entertaining when they know they are a B-movie. Unfortunately, this film still has ideas of grandeur. There are a lot of films depicting the heroic acts of Sinbad, and this one simply wasn’t needed and is nothing but a laughable let-down.

The story seemed simple and generic enough - Sinbad is a good man who is forced to do undesirable things. He is tasked with rescuing the Sultan’s daughter who was kidnapped by an evil sorcerer. On his journey, he must face creatures and magic, risking his life to save hers.

It is a surprise to see a 2014 film using stop-motion animation. For some reason, a minority of people actually seem to like this ‘throwback to old-school animation’ (see the works of Ray Harryhausen), but this is one of the areas that is supposed to get better with time. I am not saying that the use of up-to-date animation would have made this film good, but it may have given it even one redeeming factor.

The cast was mainly filled with unknowns. The only notable was Patrick Stewart who was the narrator. This might almost trick some people into watching the film, because he does not have a big role, but his dulcet tones are clear.

The story was also slow to take-off and was confusing at times.

In trying to find something positive to write about this film, I will say that the costumes weren’t altogether horrific, and the cameras were pointed in the right direction. I will also say that it must have taken a lot of time to construct the models, but this could be seen as wasted time to be put into such a disappointing film.

It also brought you back to the simpler times of your childhood when films like this were the big things at the cinemas. If only they had understood that those people are now older and want other things from their films, we may have something better.

Audience reviews either graded the film 1/10 or 10/10. I do not know what film the latter group were watching, but this film was definitely not deserving a perfect score.

I will say here that this review is my opinion, and you should still check it out if you want to.

Some of the scenes can be a bit violent and gory, but it doesn’t look real, so it is not really inappropriate for younger audiences, so they can come along too.

It actually reminds me of one of my university projects, where at the end we were considering not attaching our names to it at all. If I worked on this film, I would have asked to have my name omitted.

Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage will leave you wondering: Is it supposed to be a comedy, or was it all unintentional?