There's more to an exotic Arabian adventure than the flashing of skin and the flexing of muscles, and with Kerwin Matthews as a very Caucasian Sinbad, the results are silly fun that has achieved a cult status through the special effects and genius of Ray Harryhausen. Whether it be the one-eyed cyclops, the leashed dragon that all of a sudden gets loose or the two headed giant new born baby chick, this is filled with exotic creatures that only a special mind could create. There's also a skeleton army, an evil magician who turns on his so-called friends and a little boy Genii who longs to be free. A beautiful princess (Kathryn Grant) shrinks to the size of a barbie doll, and to bring her back to size, Sinbad and his crew (which includes the traitor magician) head back to the island of the cyclops whose body seems to be made of clay and impenetrable from anything sharp that would cause bleeding.
While "Jason and the Argonauts" is a far more fantastic spectacle, this is still highly enjoyable from start to finish, colorful and exciting. Torin Thatcher is a great villain, with Richard Eyer very cute as the cursed genii who can only be rescued by having the lamp thrown into a lake of fire. The sets are exotic and always exciting, and the costumes lavish and colorful. A battle with the cyclops has many of the men enclosed in a bamboo cage in preparation for the cyclops to barbecue over a fiery pit, and the baby chicks aren't there for the petting. After life inside an egg, these two headed birds are hungry, and anything that smells like food is ripe for the pecking.
Still early in the era of these kind of sword and sandal adventures, they hadn't gotten cheesy to the point of pure silliness, and as obviously un-Arabic as they are, Matthews, Grant and the rest of the ensemble (with perhaps the exception of Thatcher) do what they can to make their characters avoid being silly caricatures. Matthews manages to be strong and heroic without being cocky, and Grant is a force of nature in her own right. Thatcher isn't one dimensional, although by the end, you'll be anxious for him to get his well deserved come-uppance. Sure, some of the dialog is clichéd and the stop motion animation might seem dated compared to the type that's on screen now, but it's simple fun, and unlike the movies of this genre today, you won't have a headache when it's all over.
While "Jason and the Argonauts" is a far more fantastic spectacle, this is still highly enjoyable from start to finish, colorful and exciting. Torin Thatcher is a great villain, with Richard Eyer very cute as the cursed genii who can only be rescued by having the lamp thrown into a lake of fire. The sets are exotic and always exciting, and the costumes lavish and colorful. A battle with the cyclops has many of the men enclosed in a bamboo cage in preparation for the cyclops to barbecue over a fiery pit, and the baby chicks aren't there for the petting. After life inside an egg, these two headed birds are hungry, and anything that smells like food is ripe for the pecking.
Still early in the era of these kind of sword and sandal adventures, they hadn't gotten cheesy to the point of pure silliness, and as obviously un-Arabic as they are, Matthews, Grant and the rest of the ensemble (with perhaps the exception of Thatcher) do what they can to make their characters avoid being silly caricatures. Matthews manages to be strong and heroic without being cocky, and Grant is a force of nature in her own right. Thatcher isn't one dimensional, although by the end, you'll be anxious for him to get his well deserved come-uppance. Sure, some of the dialog is clichéd and the stop motion animation might seem dated compared to the type that's on screen now, but it's simple fun, and unlike the movies of this genre today, you won't have a headache when it's all over.