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Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger

List Price: $19.94
Your Price: $17.95
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Another fine matinee
Review: This may not be Harryhausen's very best but it is certainly very entertaining. This is one of those movies you can put on as background while you do something else. I give it my undivided attention myself, but it does not require it. Good family fare that should give some light entertainment for a couple hours. I am not quite sure why they did not use the same Sinbad from Golden Voyage, but each has a unique style and neither is bad. If you like Sinbad movies, Harryhausen movies, or Fantasy movies you should enjoy this.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great fantasy film, but replete with sexist/racist jokes
Review: This Sinbad story is one of the most lavish of the series, complete with an evil sorceress, gentle giants, and its own giant brass golem/construct. While not as much fun to watch as "Golden Voyage of Sinbad", it is a rollicking good time.

Sinbad (Patrick Wayne) returns to Baghdad to marry the lovely princess Farah (played by Jane Seymour). Unbeknownst to him, Farah's wicked stepmother, Zonobia (Margaret Whiting, mother of Leonard of Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet",) has turned her brother Kassim, the rightful Caliph, into a monkey so that her own son, Rafi, may take his place. Their only hope is to reach the wise Melanthius to find a cure for the curse. This cure involves a perilous trip to the capital of the Aramaspi, located at the north pole.

This movie once again uses Harryhausen's special effects to full effect. The large brass minotaur which serves as Zenobia's army gets quite a bit of screen time, as does the troglodyte giant which ends up being a bit of a hero in the end.

In all great fantasy films a believable and strong villain is key, and Zenobia herself is one of the great screen villains. Though not as strong as Thom Baker in "Golden Voyage", she is a believably wicked woman, whose motivations are clearly understood and who also manages to demonstrate a very human, maternal side. Like the various special effects "monsters" and the crew of Sinbad's ship, her son Rafi is simply there to provide cannon fodder, however. While the contest is really between the two characters of Zenobia and Melanthius (with Sinbad and everyone else sort of a third wheel), Zenobia is truly the leading character in this film.

The only weak link in this film is perhaps Sinbad himself, played by Patrick Wayne. He comes across as a bit of a Muslim "geek", if such exists. Never a good actor in any of his previous films, don't expect to see a great transformation of Wayne here. In short, he is perhaps the most boring Sinbad to date (including the dreadful TV series), and certainly doesn't hold a candle to John Phillip Law in "Golden Voyage".

The writers of the film clearly had a sense of humor, and seem to almost be poking fun at certain "essential" Sinbad premises throughout. In one very memorable scene, Melanthius hands a mirror to Farah and tells her to show the baboon his face. When she does, he says it must really be her brother, as a real baboon would have attacked his own reflection instinctively. The look Farah shoots him is truly comical, since she realises she would have been holding the mirror the baboon attacked. Clearly, Melenathius the hero is also more than a bit of a coward. Whenever something dangerous needs to be done, he gets his daughter, Dione, to do it ("Dione, go talk to that monster, and tell him we're friends" ... literally).

Farah's two recurring lines are a scream and anything beginning with "I command you....", clearly poking fun at her priveleged background. Her real role seems to be to get in the way of Sinbad and his crew (recall that bringing women on ships was an offense punishable by death up until the 18th century...now you know why), playing chess with her baboon brother, showing lots of cleavage, and screaming whenever anything happens. The latter, as I said, happens alot....

Finally, the "token" black member of Sinbad's crew....The first you see of him is his being used as a footstool while the Vizier dismounts his horse. None of the fair skinned members of the crew seem inclined to such demeaning servility. Later, when he narrowly escapes death, the only other surviving crew member says "that was the first time I have ever seen a black man turn white". Not particularly offensive, but it is a movie made in the 1970's with John Wayne's son, after all.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great fantasy film, but replete with sexist/racist jokes
Review: This Sinbad story is one of the most lavish of the series, complete with an evil sorceress, gentle giants, and its own giant brass golem/construct. While not as much fun to watch as "Golden Voyage of Sinbad", it is a rollicking good time.

Sinbad (Patrick Wayne) returns to Baghdad to marry the lovely princess Farah (played by Jane Seymour). Unbeknownst to him, Farah's wicked stepmother, Zonobia (Margaret Whiting, mother of Leonard of Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet",) has turned her brother Kassim, the rightful Caliph, into a monkey so that her own son, Rafi, may take his place. Their only hope is to reach the wise Melanthius to find a cure for the curse. This cure involves a perilous trip to the capital of the Aramaspi, located at the north pole.

This movie once again uses Harryhausen's special effects to full effect. The large brass minotaur which serves as Zenobia's army gets quite a bit of screen time, as does the troglodyte giant which ends up being a bit of a hero in the end.

In all great fantasy films a believable and strong villain is key, and Zenobia herself is one of the great screen villains. Though not as strong as Thom Baker in "Golden Voyage", she is a believably wicked woman, whose motivations are clearly understood and who also manages to demonstrate a very human, maternal side. Like the various special effects "monsters" and the crew of Sinbad's ship, her son Rafi is simply there to provide cannon fodder, however. While the contest is really between the two characters of Zenobia and Melanthius (with Sinbad and everyone else sort of a third wheel), Zenobia is truly the leading character in this film.

The only weak link in this film is perhaps Sinbad himself, played by Patrick Wayne. He comes across as a bit of a Muslim "geek", if such exists. Never a good actor in any of his previous films, don't expect to see a great transformation of Wayne here. In short, he is perhaps the most boring Sinbad to date (including the dreadful TV series), and certainly doesn't hold a candle to John Phillip Law in "Golden Voyage".

The writers of the film clearly had a sense of humor, and seem to almost be poking fun at certain "essential" Sinbad premises throughout. In one very memorable scene, Melanthius hands a mirror to Farah and tells her to show the baboon his face. When she does, he says it must really be her brother, as a real baboon would have attacked his own reflection instinctively. The look Farah shoots him is truly comical, since she realises she would have been holding the mirror the baboon attacked. Clearly, Melenathius the hero is also more than a bit of a coward. Whenever something dangerous needs to be done, he gets his daughter, Dione, to do it ("Dione, go talk to that monster, and tell him we're friends" ... literally).

Farah's two recurring lines are a scream and anything beginning with "I command you....", clearly poking fun at her priveleged background. Her real role seems to be to get in the way of Sinbad and his crew (recall that bringing women on ships was an offense punishable by death up until the 18th century...now you know why), playing chess with her baboon brother, showing lots of cleavage, and screaming whenever anything happens. The latter, as I said, happens alot....

Finally, the "token" black member of Sinbad's crew....The first you see of him is his being used as a footstool while the Vizier dismounts his horse. None of the fair skinned members of the crew seem inclined to such demeaning servility. Later, when he narrowly escapes death, the only other surviving crew member says "that was the first time I have ever seen a black man turn white". Not particularly offensive, but it is a movie made in the 1970's with John Wayne's son, after all.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Must have been in a hurry
Review: This was the third of Harryhausen and Charles Schneer's Sinbad films and certainly the weakest. I hate to re-hash the same old points everyone knows, but this script is terrible. The story is just flawed and confused, everytime I see this film I just can't beleive they could not have put together a simple story that would have been much better than the mess they did use. The whole baboon angle was so much like bad saturday morning tv. There are two other small points that always bother me, one is that the mighty gold minotaur gets destroyed by pulling out a stone instead of fighting Sinbad. The other is that Zenobia orders her son to kill Melanthius with a dagger and there were three men and a baboon standing around him, that one always makes me shake my head. However, I think the acting is pretty good except the villains Rafi and Zenobia who were definitely third rate, but Tom Baker's fantastic performance in the previous film may have some impact on that view. I think Patrick Wayne did as good as he could with the script he was given. Wayne, Patrick Troughton and Tyrone Power's daughter were certainly the standouts in this film. Harryhausen's effects are great, the giant walrus is probably my favorite because the snow really adds to the battle. The sets and settings are of the same great quality that a Schneer/harryhausen film always had. Not all that good of a movie, but the effects make it worth seeing.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: This is really a terrible picture.....
Review: Well I just saw this movie recently and it has not aged well.
Even the Harryhausen effects can not salvage what was a bad idea to start with. It's all in the casting. It's terrible. Wayne is wooden as Sinbad, and Seymore is terrible as the love interest.
What really made these movies special was when Bernard Herrmann scored the music and they put more effort into the screenplay and casting. That combined with the effects, made for a good movie. But this movie showed what happened when the effects did not have a good story, cast, or music score to work with. End result. A bad movie pure and simple.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A real trip
Review: well, the first time I saw 'Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger', I was 5 years old, home from school watching afternoon television with the smell of Vicks in my nose...and let me tell you, it really added to the already amazing special effects of this movie. I would highly recommend it... not only does it have the devastatingly beautiful young Jane Seymour, but Sinbad is quite dashing, and the monsters and scenarios are genuinely intriguing. The animation, especially on the Tiger and in the Tiger/Cyclops-monster battle scene is amazing for its time, and the man who created it must have had the patience of a saint. The movie is worth watching just for its old-style animation effects alone. Beleive me, the images of it come back in your dreams.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Gloriously Campy
Review: Why don't they ever play this movie on T.V.? The Golden Minotaur and his evil witch mistress steal the show from Patrick Wayne's overly macho Sinbad. Does Leonard Maltin like any Fantasy movies?


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