The Golden Voyage of Sinbad

How can you not love this film .. it's difficult to imagine that anyone could pan the astounding performance of John Phillip Law as Sinbad .. His turn as the beloved Arabic pirate is more adventureous than the boring and cardboard studio fave, Kerwin Matthews and far better than the bland and horrific Patrick Wayne .. The special FX of Ray Harryhausen are his best to date .. The plot is solid and the talent pull this tale off without a hitch or glint of camp which is generally the norm in a cult film such as this.. This is Saturday afternoon television at its best ... Onward and upward with John Phillip Law all the way ..

The special effects by Ray Harryhausen are magnificent and far out weigh any of the films many flaws. A film fantasy classic, though made 14 years after 'The classic Seventh Voyage' which the purists say was superior. still the stop-motion indian goddess Kali, is for me his finest creation (bar the Medusa, from 'Clash of the Titans'. Tom baker is outstanding as the evil wizard and so is the stunning Carolie Munroe as sinbad's cabin girl, muse (well she's such a nice diversion to the monster action). Todays C.G.I action is so mediocre, whilst thes stop-motion effects are pure magic. I wish they still made them and the last I saw popped up in a short sequence in 'The Evil Dead'. I loved every second as a kid and still do as an adult. Timeless fantasy adventure.

Ignore pointless comparisons about how it pales in comparison to Lord of the Rings. This isn't Lord of the Rings, nor is it Citizen Kane. Why some fools insist that every movie must be measured by the yardstick of their own personal favorite I will never understand. If you're so spoiled by state-of-the-art computer graphics where each creature has an entire team of people working on it, and can't appreciate the human creativity and craftsmanship of great stop-motion animation, don't waste your time on this movie, go watch the latest Pixar release. Harryhausen's work is remarkable not because it's the most realistic animation ever, but because he was able to achieve remarkable things with sculpture and movement on a budget comparable to today's 30 second ad spots. Tom Baker steals the movie. He's terrific as the evil sorcerer, villainous but with enough humanity to his character to make him at least somewhat sympathetic.