A Nova Viagem de Sinbad

After Sinbad (Jon Phillip Law) happens upon a strange gold "bauble" while at sea, his ship ends up at a town where a similar gold piece is kept by a Vizier (Douglas Wilmer), whose city is threatened by the evil prince Koura (Tom Baker). Sinbad, his crew, the Vizier, and two other people from the town begin an adventure to solve the mystery of the "baubles".

This is a fine fantasy/adventure film, and definitely one worth watching by any fans of the genre, as well as Ray Harryhausen fans. Mostly excellent, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad also has a couple of flaws that brought my score down to an 8 out of 10.

The main problem is that the film tends to meander at times. There are also a few minor problems with direction or editing, such as the less-than-convincing sword fight in the cave near the end of the film. Also, the mostly episodic nature of the script lessens the overall impact. It often feels like a string of short stories arbitrarily strung together, although in the end, the overarching goal ties the film together well enough.

But what "short stories" those are! The script, production/set design and costumes easily propel you into a captivating fantasy world, and Harryhausen's creatures, as always, are a delight to watch. No, they're not exactly realistic--no more realistic looking than cgi, in my opinion--but I'm not looking for realism when I watch a film like this. I'm looking for brilliant artistry, especially if it has a horror edge, and Harryhausen's stop-motion animated creatures fit the bill.

Most of the scenarios in the film are cleverly conceived. They're constantly leading to intriguing puzzles that have to be solved by our heroes, somewhat similar to a fantasy role-playing computer game, which films like this surely influenced. This maintains a gradually heightening suspense throughout the length of the film, as each puzzle tends to be more difficult than the previous one, and most are accompanied by fascinating beasties of some kind.

Although this genre is not usually noted for its fantastic performances, everyone in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad does a great job. Even as a Doctor Who fan who grew up watching the Tom Baker era of that show, it took me awhile to figure out who Baker was here. He is a joy to watch as a slightly campy villain. An even bigger joy to watch was Caroline Munro, who is breathtakingly beautiful. And Law, as Sinbad, is completely convincing and cool.

As long as you don't expect a masterpiece, you should have a lot of fun watching this film.

Boy, I'll tell you that when this was new, it was great. This was before Lucas and Spielberg made it impossible to have a straight ahead adventure film with no winks at the audience.

This was when special effects were more believable because the monsters were so unlike humans.

This was before Arabs became equated with uncontrollable anger, and instead could be seen as mysterious and wise. Indeed, so thorough is our acceptance of the Arabian perspective here that the inner, more primitive (and unrefined) magic is Hindu. A very cool touch.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Made 14 years after The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad, this follow up is ,unsurprisingly, not as good, but that WAS a ground breaking classic. Perhaps sensing that they could not top the first film, the filmmakers give this movie a slightly different feel. If 7th Voyage was full of colour and size, Golden Voyage is somewhat darker and less spectacular. Most of the action occurs at night or in caves, while none of the creatures are especially large. This makes Golden Voyage slightly less of a delightful romp, but it's certainly not just a rehash. There is a strong sense of the uncanny to some scenes,such as the villain's resurrection of the tiny humunculus, or the coming to life of the ship's figurehead.

The pace is possibly a little two leisurely, but the action is still terrific, the showstopper being Sinbad and his men battling the 6 armed statue of the Indian goddess Kali, a masterpiece of effects and editing. Tom Baker is the most sinister of all Harryhausen's villains, and Miklos Rozsa's wonderfully rich and grand score never fails to provide excellent backing. It's very different from Bernard Herrmann's classic Harryhausen scores, but as effective.

Despite their flaws, there is a wonderful innocence to these Harryhausen films. A modern version would be filled to the brim with CGI, hyperactive editing, 'clever' laughs that show that no one is bothering to take any of this seriously ,etc....... Is that really an improvement?

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 ..

This film was a big hit in 1974 and many other Sinbad films have been made and there is no comparison to our new films today, it was a great success in the 70's and is enjoyable to view and enjoy the great acting of John Phillip Law (Sinbad) and his woman companion, Caroline Munro(Margiana) who battle all the evil spells and evil powers that Tom Baker,(Koura) tries to use against Sinbad. Every time Koura uses the Evil Powers, his face begins to look like an old man and he even gets weaker and weaker. There is clashing of swords and deep pits of hell Sinbad falls into and he still manages to fight the bitter struggles of Evil vs. Good. Caroline Munro gives a great supporting role and Tom Baker is completely in control of his role as a very EVIL Demon. Enjoy this Sinbad from the Past, it is worth watching.