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STUDIO: Sony Pictures
MSRP: $19.94
RATED: Not Rated
RUNNING TIME: 88 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Audio commentary w/Ray Harryhausen
• Remembering The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
• The Harryhausen legacy
• The music of Bernard Herrmann
• Photo Gallery
• Music Video
• A look behind the voyage
• Ray Harryhausen interview by John Landis
• This is Dynamation special effects featurette

The Pitch

"Enjoy some of the coolest fake monsters to ever hit the silver screen."

The Humans

Kerwin Mathews, Kathryn Grant, Richard Eyer, Torin Thatcher, Alec Mango

The Nutshell

"When the evil magician Sokurah (Torin Thatcher) shrinks Princess Parisa (Kathryn Grant), only one thing can restore her: the egg of a Roc. Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) hires a crew of mutiny-minded convicts and sets sail, Sokurah in tow, but runs afoul of a fire-breathing dragon, a very ticked off Cyclops, and an equally crabby two-headed mutant Roc."

The Lowdown

If you are a fan of this movie chances are you already have a copy of this movie. In fact, chances are if you are not a fan this movie is somewhere in your collection. This prediction is due to the numerous DVD releases this film has already received - The Sinbad Collection, The Fantastic Films of Ray Harryhausen, Ray Harryhausen Collection, and the single disc The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Talk about overkill! No one loves Harryhausen more than me but it goes without question that Sony Pictures have diluted Harryhausen's movies by flooding the market every year with a re-packaging of the same material. The only reason to purchase this latest release is for the extras, but even then some have been previously released in other packages.

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is a fun action / adventure movie that features some of Harryhausen's best work. The story itself is pretty basic in that the core of the movie is about a hero whose objective is to save a damsel in distress. In order to achieve this Sinbad has to battle several monsters including a Cyclops, Roc, and my favorite part, a group of skeletons. I can only imagine the awe movie goers must have felt when seeing this movie on the big screen 50 years ago because there was nothing like it before. Even today this movie makes all those expensive CGI laden $150 million dollar movies pale in comparison.


Even though the acting is sub-par (Kerwin Mathews is a dull action hero), acting awards is not what the filmmakers were aiming for here. One of my favorite parts of the movie is not having to wait for an eternity before the action kicks in. We meet the Cyclops at the beginning and from there the anticipation on what creature Sinbad will have to face is part of the fun.

As previously mentioned, the 7th Voyage of Sinbad showcases some of Harryhausen's best stop-motion animation work. In this movie he manages to create some monsters that look realistic and he made the monsters more exciting than the actors! Unlike It Came from Beneath the Sea or The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, that featured unmemorable creatures, the 7th Voyage of Sinbad has the creatures stealing the spotlight.


The Package

The highlight of this set are the extras. Beginning with the featurettes: Remembering The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The Harryhausen legacy, A look behind the voyage, and This is Dynamation special effects - you are going to learn everything there is to know about the main feature plus Harryhausen's contributions to numerous movies. The Photo gallery and Music video are standard fare. The audio commentary by Harryhausen is a must listen as he provides a wealth of tidbits on how certain scenes were set up and what techniques he used for the creatures.

8.0 out of 10