Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage (2014) Reviews

• Possibly the worst I've ever seen

  schwicked2014-11-29

  There are several fake reviews for this movie, attempting to counter the 1 stars with a bunch of 10/10 reviews. Be warned, this movie is one of the worst ever made. It's not subjective, it's just a fact. There have been worse movies but they were all made in the 70's about workplace safety. There are several aspects of this movie that are terrible. The acting is on par with that which you might find in a play put on hastily by teenagers, who forget to make a script... or a plot. The script, if one exists, is the kind of thing that makes the likes of 10,000 BC or Cats & Dogs look like masterworks. It mostly consists of one character telling everyone what is happening then another saying "oh yes, that is happening", to which a third character will exclaim that "I have also noticed it happening, and this is how I feel about it." Which may or may not be accompanied by an expression, which is supposed to convey an emotion but somehow doesn't. The story was clearly not story boarded. That's the only conclusion I can come up with as to why giant swathes of the plot are skipped over from scene to scene. I have actually advised several film students to watch the movie as a warning, to illustrate what happens if you try and make a movie without properly planning it beforehand. You end up with missing scenes. In the case of Sinbad, you are missing at least 20 minutes, since the movie purports to be 89 minutes long but is actually only 69. Editing. It's one of those jobs that is utterly thankless. If you do a good job, nobody notices but if you do a bad job, you ruin everything. As an illustration of what you can expect, we have a scene in the movie where, not once but twice, the camera has a slow, lingering shot of what we're told is a honey comb (people who have seen a honey comb know that they rarely look so much like a throbbing member though), the shot is accompanied by tense, combat style music. It is surreal. As if to compliment that, we have combat scenes, scored by gentle, Sunday strolling music. Effects. Much has been made of the effects by the fake reviews but they really, really shouldn't. The effects are just plain bad. They are bad, to the extent, that the 1958 Sinbad movie, which featured the stunning work of Ray Harryhausen, is leagues ahead, not 50+ years behind. The idea of paying homage is fantastic and certainly stop-motion, with the modern tools available can really be brought to the next level, it just hasn't been here. It has dramatically missed the next level, fallen short and landed in a vat of angry alligators. In short, the movie is a disaster, the likes of which most will be lucky to never see. For everyone else, watch this movie, only so that you might warn others. Please insert your own sign-off pun, based on movie quality, containing the words 'sin' and 'bad'................................. ...............here.

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• I would rather watch paint dry

  stephanfourie62014-10-14

  All I can say is this film, if you dare to call it that takes the "Sin" out of "Sinbad". Do yourself a favor and skip this one, this should go straight to DVD and then die.The acting is very poor and also the special effects are sure special, costumes aren't bad. I felt like I was watching something akeen to a bad remake of pulp fiction with all the jumping around between scenes and time line, I think the editor was asleep when cutting the scenes or maybe was watching pulp fiction at the time, then we get to the sound, the score isn't bad but once again poorly executed.So all and all someone's wasted a lot of money on this submarine of a film.

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• Ray Harryhausen Would Turn In His Grave.....

  barry-steers2014-10-14

  I've been a big fan of Sinbad and Ray Harryhausen movies since I was a kid. These movies were some of the first I ever saw at the cinema and later in life I've introduced my 10 year son to them and he loves them too. When I saw what I can only describe as a 'remake' of a classic I decided to watch this with an open mind. Well within the first few minutes you could see what a crock of s*** this was. The FX were supposedly a homage to dear Ray but it completely lacked any soul or peril that the originals had. This movie was a hollow, amateurish attempt to recreate a classic and it failed miserably. I think my main gripe is the atrocious editing. It really was appalling and what could have been a barely passable film ended being cringe-worthy such was the terrible way it was put together. Yes some of the acting was creaky and the cast and extras only just about made it to double figures but the whole thing really is spoiled by the lack of care in post production. For the people giving this movie high praise, well we all know they are either part of the movie or associated with it somehow. Ultimately their high marks just make them look like morons. As a point, there are in fact 3 reviewers in a row giving this pile of steaming crap 10 stars but looking through their review history they joined IMDb at the same time, have all reviewed the exact same films at the same time and with the same or similar remarks so are in fact must be the same person giving multiple entries. This is probably an industry insider giving an inflated score to compensate for the real and honest low ones. Do yourself a favour and do not watch this, just go watch the originals as they are infinitely more appealing.

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• Unbelievably, laughably, terrifically bad . . . .

  dan6-12014-10-13

  I was seduced into watching this movie because of Patrick Stewart's involvement. I'm certain that once he saw it (if he even did — he wanted to crawl into a small dark hole. This movie is unspeakably awful. I'm a huge fan of all the Harryhausen-era versions, and I had turn this off at the 30-minute mark. The effects looked like they were done by a high-school class, and the actors were unspeakably horrible. To give you some idea, the Caliph's guards were pudgy, pasty-looking guys that looked like they were pulled from their mall security gigs to hold spears and look bewildered at how they had ended up on a film set. Sinbad himself looked like a grade-Z extra from a terrorist film. And then you have Patrick Stewart narrating over the whole mess in a state of total ignorance at the travesty transpiring on the screen. I can only believe that previous reviewers had some involvement with the production of this "movie" because it is so obviously terrible, terrible, terrible. (Did I mention that it's terrible?) Please stay far away from this stinker. Otherwise, it will haunt your memories. I would give this a rating of "0" if I could...

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• Bad and amateurish

  sashairk2014-12-11

  When I see many 1- and 2-star reviews along with 5-star reviews my conclusion is that the movie is really bad and the 5-star reviews are written by the friends, family members and the people who made it. I could force myself to watch only first 20 minutes of this 'masterpiece.' The animation is primitive like in the school movie, the acting is bad. I was surprised to learn, actually, that this is a US- made film. It looked more like some poorly made Bollywood flick, although they can make pretty good films there. I just wonder how such a fine actor like Patrick Stewart could lend his voice to such a trash. Well, money talks, I guess. Don't waste your time on this one unless you want to see how a really bad B-movie looks like.

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