User reviews

"Sinbad of the Seven Seas" its another great "Z" movie from the director Enzo G. Castellari, "Sinbad of the seven seas" its an Italian fantasy a muscle-bound Sinbad (Lou Ferrigno) and his sailors cross the seas to recover the magic stones and help a young prince regain his throne battling it out with a powerful, wicked wizard Jaffar (John Steiner). The lack of money its clearly in the movie, the acting its terrible..well, its entertaining and makes laugh, its a 5 o'clock fantasy flick...

If you like this one, i recommend:

"Hercules in the Haunted World" ( Mario Bava, Franco Prosperi); "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger"(Sam Wanamaker) and "Clash of the Titans"(because of special effects of Ray Harryhausen) .

An incredibly fun, incredibly bad movie. Definitely recommended for any fans of bad cinema, this movie has it all. Plastic props, horrendous dialogue, plot holes galore, sophomoric special effects. Lou Ferrigno (Hulk!) throws his sword away and wrestles with bad guys, in sloooooow motion action sequences that will have you yawning in anticipation. Hats off to John Steiner as the EVIL Jaffar-his hammy overacting steals every scene he's in. Listen especially for the scene where he's discussing his plans with the princess in the tower. Just when you think he's done, he lets out this uproarious "Ha!" that's so random, you won't know what hit you! I was laughing for minutes-then for hours afterward, just from remembering this one line. Definitely one of the highlights of modern cinema-see this movie! 2/10, both points for the awesome performance of Jaffar.

It takes talent to make a good movie. You have to have good everything to make it happen--actors, plot, script, directing, etc. It takes just as much talent to screw up every single aspect of a movie, while trying to do your best. This is exactly what "Sinbad" achieves. Cheesy fights; awful, unnatural (ie, hilarious) dialogue; and poor acting all combine to bring the word "appalling" to mind.

This movie is not a painful bad, but a funny bad, best enjoyed with buddies. Do not pass up a chance to watch this!

One of my favorite comedies, although it's not supposed to be one. So incredibly bad, it's amazing! Some of the stupidest dialogue ever, and some ridiculous fight scenes. Lou Ferrigno is a joy to watch, especially his hilarious facial expressions. Watch this movie with a bunch of friends, but do not drink milk while doing so, otherwise it'll come spewing out of your nose!

This film begins with a mother reading a bedtime story to her young daughter about the adventures of a brave sailor named "Sinbad" (played by Lou Ferrigno). As the story goes, Sinbad and his shipmates are bringing "Prince Ali" (Roland Wybenga) to Basra so that he can marry "Princess Alina" (Alessandra Martines). However, just before they get there the evil sorcerer "Jaffar" (John Steiner) decides to overthrow the "Caliph of Basra" (Donald Hodson) by casting an evil spell which creates chaos and destruction upon the city thereby leaving him in total control. To that extent, upon their arrival there Sinbad and his crew are barely able to escape with their lives and upon doing so they immediately set sail in a effort to recover the four sacred gems of Basra which they will need to help rectify the situation. Now rather than reveal any more. I will just say that this film had a good storyline but it was completely ruined by the simplistic format, incompetent direction, imbecilic script, and some really horrendous acting. Likewise, having Lou Ferrigno so badly miscast in the lead role certainly didn't help matters. Admittedly, it did have several beautiful actresses like Melonee Rodgers (as the Amazon Queen "Farida"), Stefania Girolami ("Kyra"), Teagan Clive ("Soukra") and the aforementioned Alessandra Martines. Yet despite that fact it wasn't enough to significantly affect the overall picture. It was just that bad.

Made in Spain with no sound equipment under a director who rewrote it as he filmed it, shelved for years due to being unusable, then one day roughly edited, badly dubbed, and poorly scored in an attempt to get something saleable and here we are.

Ever seen Sinbad portrayed as a heavily muscled superman in sparkly purple disco tights? Ever seen Jaffar portrayed as a cackling English villain in cahoots with a busty blonde in a scandalous leather one piece? Well now you can!

There's monsters, fighting, sexy ladies, animated effects, leather clad henchmen, slo-mo running, a 'Poochie the Dwarf' comic-relief who's neither funny nor a dwarf then disappears midway through the movie, more fighting, constant narration explaining what's going on, laughably poor music, magical zombie horses, and that guy off the hulk, I mean what's not to like, people!?

So the film would lead you to believe. Mr. Poe's actual story bears little to no similarities to this tale, but the fact that it opens with the claim that it is based on his story is just part of the inane fun that is SINBAD OF THE SEVEN SEAS! This is a film so poorly written, acted, directed, and conceived, with horrible dubbing that it takes on an air of the absurd. If you are not laughing at the film at some point, you must not have a good sense of humor. Fun fact, the short story Edgar Allen Poe actually wrote, "The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade," is an amusing story(far better than this movie) in which Scheherazade tells of Sinbad's last adventure in which real things from an outsiders perspective are described, but not believed by the King.

The Story: Sinbad returns home to find that the evil Jaffar has rested control of the kingdom with his sorcery and brought an age of darkness. Sinbad and his intrepid crew must find the four magic gems that will return peace to the land and save the princess.

Three out of ten stars for the film(I've sadly seen worse) and nine out of ten for unintentional humor.

No, really. Sinbad is easily more entertaining than Plan 9 from Outer Space, which is more commonly considered the best bad movie ever.

I won't give away all the details that make this movie so laughably awful, but I'll mention a few that I hope will convince you to find and watch this film. (You can read a more comprehensive review at www.rinkworks.com/badmovie/m/sinbad.of.the.seven.seas.1989.shtml)

John Steiner hammimg up the role of Jaffar, the villain. In particular, he exclaims one two-letter word that must be heard to be believed. You'll know which one I mean when you hear it.

All the music is done by one guy on a synthesizer, a total of about five different sound effects are used in all the fight scenes, and all the lines are DUBBED OVER. It seems the filmmakers didn't have the ability to record live sound on the set.

All action scenes are done in slow motion, and this is made painfully obvious by Lou Ferrigno's flapping, overgrown, oiled man-pecs.

However, all these shortcomings pale in comparison to the dialogue. I'll conclude with a snippet:

Sinbad: Wait a minute. There's nobody here.

Poochie the Dwarf: There's nobody here.

Sinbad: I just said that. That's the point.

An awesomely ripped Lou Ferrigno headlines here as the eponymous hero in this visually lavish fantasy flick brought to us by the ever reliable Enzo G.Castellari.

Sinbad's mission is to brave numerous perils in order to rescue a beautiful princess from the clutches of an evil wizard named Jaffar who has taken over the kingdom of Basra by dark magical means.

Also along for the adventure are Sinbad's crew who are comprised of a mighty viking, a philosophical samurai warrior, a dashing prince who is betrothed to the captive princess, a bald chef and a dwarf named Poochi(!) Along the way this brave band of heroes find themselves up against undead armies, rock monsters, seductive Amazonians and a slimy ogre plus in the finale, big Lou comes up against his own clone!!!

Approach this in the right frame of mind and you should have a good time, after all it's entirely harmless fun in much the same vein as films such as Labyrinth etc.

Certainly the film does have far higher production values than most Italian films of the eighties with some beautifully sumptuous sets and costumes on display throughout. Added to this there's a good assemble of B-Movie stars; Big Lou, Romano Puppo (sadly relegated to a very minor role) and of course the ever wonderful John Steiner who is clearly having a ball with his material here as the delightfully hissable Jaffar.

Unfortunately, there are a number of factors which do seriously drag the film down however. For instance, a few of the characters (most notably Lou) have been entirely overdubbed with irritating voice overs - quite why this was the case, I have no idea.

By far the most damning criticism I have for the film though is the intrusive and annoying narrative that accompanies (and incessantly interjects upon!) the proceedings throughout. You see, the basis for the film is that everything taking place on screen is actually a bedtime story being read to a little girl by her mother. And wouldn't you know it - the mother's voice is yet another infuriating overdub!!!

Still, to be fair and looking past these failings, this is actually a fairly enjoyable watch. If you like a spot of swashbuckling fantasy and enjoy films such as The Princess Bride and the aforementioned Labyrinth then this may well be right up your street.

AWFUL! Its as if every single person working on this film,had no idea what they were doing! while we all love a bad "B" movie, this one takes the cake, but doesnt know how to eat it! it's like driving past a bad car accident, you cant help but look.

Just like The Archer: Fugitive from the Empire, the last time I saw this film is like 7 or 8 years ago. I didn't even remember seeing it, but when I spoke to my brother about The Archer last time, he said: ‘Yes that was a great B movie, just as Sinbad of the Seven Seas with Lou Ferrigno.' I was like: ‘WHAT FILM?' Then he told me all about the zombies and the scene when Sinbad squished one of the zombies hearts with his bare hands and I was like: ‘Was that the movie when he rips off an arm off one of the zombies?' He said ‘YEP' and I remembered. That film was really good. I mean I do not remember many films for such a long time without having seen them, after that. The only 4 films I can recollect pretty good are this one, The Archer, The Temple of Doom and Tarantula. The latter two because well, The Temple of Doom gave me nightmares and Tarantula scared the living crap out of me. Anyway I'm wandering off here. Great trash flick this one.

8 out of 10

My Take: Awful acting, awful writing, awful action. Awful everything!

What can I say about "Sinbad and the Seven Seas"? Well lets review it shall we. Well, Sinbad is played by Lou Ferrigno. It started off on a wrong foot (and a low budget) from the start. Well I guess that's that. It's silly, boring and pointless. Need I say more?

I couldn't even finish watching it. I only watched the first half, changed the channel, then watched the second half. And you know what? I should have quit on it from the start. What a waste. A compendium of stupidity, poor performances, loathsome dialog and silly situations.

Well, I guess I made my point.

Rating: 0 stars out of 5.

I fell in this movie on accident. The name Jaffar and Prince Ali fell so I thought I was watching "Thief of Bagdad" (Most who is reading this doesn't know but Disney's Aladdin was for a part inspired by Thief of Bagdad, names and plot) so I was excited. When the name Sinbad fell it made me frown, I didn't understand what Sinbad and Prince Ali (who I thought was Aladdin) did in the same movie. or I remember hearing my friends, who seen this movie, mentioning Sinbad in Thief of Bagdad. I turned out too be a Sinbad movie and the Prince Ali character was just a part of his crew and had not much dialog his reasons was that he wanted to marry this princess Alina (who I, at that moment, thought was the live-action version of the beautiful, strong Princess Jasmine from "Aladdin") The princess wasn't much better she just let her be captured by the wizard and waited, chained, for her rescuer who came in the form of Sinbad. Another something I didn't understand, why Sinbad and not the prince? The prince wanted too marry her right and not Sinbad.

Anyway I decided too watch it I found another Aladdin refer, the kalif looked a little like the sultan of Agrabah. The further the movie passed along the more I started too dislike it. The plot it self would be fine for a movie but the rest was bad. The movie had nothing too do with the wonderful Disney's Aladdin. I don't recommend renting this movie, waste of money.

If you wanna see Sinbad brought to live on TV I recommend watching "Adventures of Sinbad, The" (1996)" But don't watch this, waste of time & money, movie.

Italian trash director Enzo G. Castellari puts the 'bad' in Sinbad with this inept fairy-tale flick based on The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade by Edgar Allen Poe. Bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno plays the legendary sailor who, with the help of his brave crew, must recover five magical gems to free the city of Basra, which has fallen under an evil spell cast by wicked wizard Jaffar (John Steiner).

Sinbad of the Seven Seas opens in a similar manner to The Princess Bride (1987), with a mother (Daria Nicolodi) reading a bedtime story to her young daughter. But whereas this framing device was used sparingly and intelligently in Rob Reiner's much loved classic, Castellari's muddled storytelling requires frequent and extremely dull narration from Nicolodi to help explain the story, all of which proves very distracting, never allowing the viewer to become immersed in the action.

Not that the film would prove very engaging even if it it were possible to follow matters without the narration: Castellari's direction is dreadful, the script (by fellow Italian hack Luigi Cozzi) is diabolical, the performances range from wooden (Ferrigno) to ridiculously hammy (Steiner), and the special effects are cheap and nasty. The result is a film that possesses zero magic—a bedtime story that'll have you drifting off to sleep, whether you want to or not.

Why is everyone white? This looks like it's from the 70's, this really came out in 89?

I watched "Sinbad of the Seven Seas" for the "How Did This Get Made" podcast. It was, as you might imagine being covered by the bad movie podcast, pretty awful.

The evil Jaffar (John Steiner) takes control of Basra having despatch four of the five magical gems to various locations, and keeping on final one for himself. Sinbad (Lou Ferrigno) and his crew escape from Basra and have to locate and retrieve the other gems, before Jaffar can consolidate his power and marry the Caliph's daughter Prince Alina (Alessandra Martines).

I mean like so many films from this period it's almost not worth criticising them for the appearance and production values because were Cannon not to have specialised in this sort of production, the film wouldn't have existed at all. Filmed in Italy, without any sound being recorded and then the whole audio dubbed in afterwards which is unquestionably the cheaper option but makes for hilariously awful mixing when watching the film back. Even Ferrigno is dubbed. The acting is poor, across the board, with on John Steiner appearing to have any real fun, with the "Tenebrae" actor chewing all the scenery he can find in what is a proto-Alan Rickman Sheriff of Nottingham type performance.

Unfortunately for the film, it's mostly a procession of tedious fights. It says it's inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade" but with the exception of both containing a Hot Air Balloon there's little to actually connect them. Indeed it's barely a film at all, and the idea that the original director essentially dumped hours of unusable footage on producers, who then had to try and twist it into anything remotely viewable is compelling.

Apart from the occasional unintentional laugh, there's little to recommend the film for, though it's also difficult to argue that perhaps they got what they paid for.

I have to say, this is quite possibly one of the greatest moving pictures of all time...well not quite. Being twenty years old, i was 4 when this movie came out and this was really my favorite movie. Seriously, i would watch it, rewind it, then watch it again. watching again just now, i don't know what the hell was wrong with me. There are so many things wrong with this movie i don't know where to begin ripping on it. the diologue is atrocious, along with the plot, characters, and pretty much everything else. But i guess I'd say watch this movie if you're looking for a serious laugh and have some time to kill, being under the influence really helps...trust me. One final thing to say: Be prepared to see Lou Farrigno flex his pecks about 5,000 times throughout this movie.

Yes, this is not the best film ever made BUT pay attention to the town crier? I recently saw him in an art-house French film and he was spectacular. If this is indeed the director who discovered him, then he is to be applauded. Hope to see more of Armando MacRory in the future. If you get the chance pick up a copy of the film and you will see exactly what I mean. In a film that is clunky there is a strange depth to the character who brings the hero and heroine together, a tragic eloquence. It is not easy to steal the show from the many special effects, fight scenes and show some real acting in this kitchy epic but this actor manages. Thumbs up, and bravo. I hear the movie is available on DVD, so I shall head out to the shops and purchase it and I strongly recommend others do as well.

Sinbad of the Seven Seas is an entry in the Sinbad series of films which includes the enjoyable and much better film Golden Voyage of Sinbad. They are knockabout lmfamily friendly action adventure films.

Seven Seas was produced by an Italian company and directed by Enzo Castellari who is better known for his excellent violent crime films and spaghetti westerns. I know he is a talented director, but this film is mediocre at best.

Terrible acting from Lou Ferrigno who looks absolutely jacked, but doesn't bring much charisma to the role. Stefania Girolami Goodwin is good looking and wears skimpy tops as the princess, but it's an underwritten and boring role. John Steiner is however fantastic as Jaffar, the evil wizard. He really hams it up and makes the film much more fun to watch.

The set design is decent with some truly weird setpieces like hot air balloons flying machines like something out of a steampunk novel. The special effects are truly terrible even for 1989, they would even be considered bad for an ABC TV movie.

This film wasn't the success Cannon was hoping for at kick-starting the Sinbad franchise again and it is a low point of both Enzo's and Luigi Cozzi's (the screenwriter) otherwise largely excellent careers.

The film has gone onto obtain a campy cult status. The UK Blu Ray has an absolutely superb print, sadly only 2.0 sound. The zombie having its arm ripped off is intact which raised the film from a PG to a 12 rating. Other than for John Steiner's hilarious acting I can't really recommend it.