Sinbad's legend brings summer animated fun (From Western Telegraph)

Sinbad's legend brings summer animated fun

Sinbad: Legend Of The Seven Seas Directed by Patrick Gilmore and Tim Johnson. Starring Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michelle Pfeiffer, Joseph Feinnes. Cert. U

Sinbad: Legend Of The Seven Seas, is an old fashioned animated film. It is actually at the cutting edge of animation, but only of the old style.

Animation now is divided into two camps. The first is the new age of computer generated films. There are no artists drawing by hand. Computer whizz-kids have replaced them. Films like Toy Story and Shrek have pushed the boundaries of technology, creating real screen textures that make the impossible look possible.

But for all that, many people think that such computer generated animation lacks the comforting artistry of old favourites like The Jungle Book, or Winnie The Pooh.

Sinbad: Legend Of The Seven Seas, looks like a good old cartoon, but don't be fooled. In its creation it employed more gadgetry than you could waft a mouse-mat at. In fact, one of its lesser flaws is that in some cases, where they have added computer generated monsters, they do jar against the traditional characters.

Sinbad: Legend Of The Seven Seas is one of the stories of Sinbad, Arabian sailor of legend. I'm not terribly familiar with them, so I can't tell how much licence Dreamworks have taken with this story, but I suspect, quite a lot.

The film starts with Eris, god of chaos, voiced luxuriantly by Michelle Pfeiffer. Being in charge of chaos, she has to get up early and, for reasons not terribly well explained, she decides to pick on Sinbad. She steals the book of peace and frames Sinbad with the crime. His old friend Proteus decides to take the rap for him and so Sinbad has to free his mate and get the book back to it's rightful owner.

Sinbad is voiced by Brad Pitt, who does well to give the character a slightly more edgy feel than the usual hero of animated pics. Sinbad is a seafarer of questionable morality and Pitt's voice carries it off easily.

As a love interest he has a shapely, feisty, post millennium, trouser-wearing stowaway called Marina, voiced by Zeta-Jones.

Apart from the afore mentioned Pfeiffer, the only other voice of interest belongs to Sinbad's childhood friend, Proteus, who is voiced by Joseph Feinnes.

So is this the last gasp for traditional animation? Well, if it is, then I'd describe traditional animation as in a serious condition, but stable. Sinbad is funny and exciting and beautiful at times as the best animations should be. Where it falls down is, sadly, that the script, the most elemental part of all films, animated or otherwise, is lacking invention and interest. And I fear that it's just slightly lacking, whether you're eight or eighty.

But is Sinbad: Legend Of The Seven Seas better than a day watching the summer rain ? Definitely.