Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003)

(In French, Netflix Streaming, March 2020) Every so often, I end up belatedly watching a film I should have seen much earlier, and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is the newest of those. A classic swashbuckling adventure in a fantasy universe of gods and monsters, this animated film packs a punch in a too-short 80 minutes. Sinbad and his crew go looking for a magical book in order to counter the plans of a chaotic goddess, but the point of the film is found in the many episodic adventures they have along the way. The animation is a mixture of 2D cell and 3D-CGI, and like many turn-of-the-century films, the integration of the two is rarely seamless despite a few technical achievements. Sinbad is on firmer ground when it comes to dialogue, with better-than-average repartee between its characters and two fairly strong female characters to round up the cast. Considering some suggestive content and the sex-appeal of the characters, the film may be more appropriate for older kids rather than the entire family. A few anachronisms and a cosmic framing device make the film feel even bigger and more fun than the strict narration of its adventures. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is quite enjoyable despite a few flaws, so much so that it seems to end too quickly.