Finally! After over a decade of waiting, the entire catalog of early Dreamworks animated films has been made available, one by one, on Bluray. This included the coveted 2D films, with "Sinbad - Legend of the Seven Seas" releasing on Bluray disc in North America in 2019. Dreamworks' plans to enter the animation market started with great ambition, with 1998's "The Prince of Egypt" being a critical success, matching the quality of Disney with a distinct style of its own. Only the fourth 2D film, 2003's "Sinbad - Legend of the Seven Seas" is a comparitively safe and one-dimensional film in terms of story, at a time when pirates were cool again (see "Treasure Planet" from 2002, and "Pirates of the Caribbean" in 2003), and a mediocre box office return would see that Dreamworks stick with only 3D animation from that point on, with a series of "Shrek" sequels to carry it. Yes, "Sinbad" is defintely the worst of their 2D theatrical films. Even as a kid seeing this in theaters, I recognized that. But even their worst has more merit than one might imagine.Loosely inspired by the legend, written alongside tales like "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" and "Jason and the Argonauts," Sinbad is a pirate, and the start of the film sees him leading a ragtag crew to steal the magical "Book of Peace" for ransom and retirement. The book is guarded by Proteus, the price of Syracuse, and an old childhood friend of Sinbad's. Whatever Sinbad's plans are, Eris (the Goddess of Discord) has her own ideas, and ultimately uses the situation to steal the book herself, and frames Sinbad for the crime. To everyone's surprise, Proteus offers his live in exchange for Sinbad's when he is found guilty, giving Sinbad ten days to steal back the book before Proteus is executed. Sinbad, a scoundrel who only thinks of himself, uses the opportunity to retreat, but when Proteus' fiancee, Marina, stows away on their ship to oversee their adventure, Sinbad reluctantly agrees to take up the challenge.This is Dreamworks' first real attempt at a high-level fantasy with Gods and monsters. The setup with the relationship between Sinbad and Proteus is great, and the ending succeeds in a satisfying way. It's the middle part of the story that struggles, as well as a lot of other little details. For example, how does a glowing magical book really create 'peace' in the world? Why doesn't the sexy goddess Eris just snap her fingers and cause the world to burn? One could think of a variety of excuses; maybe Eris is just trying to have fun in her own way, rather than spitefully destroying the human race, and likes giving herself a challenge. Even so, it would have helped if the movie gave itself more rules to follow. And to fill in the middle part, the adventure takes Sinbad and his crew through a variety of challenges, from a ship graveyard full of sirens, to a icy mountain, to a tropical island, to the literal edge of the world, and within, a vast empty desert. It's fun to see how Sinbad's ingenuity helps get the crew out of each mess, but I couldn't help but feel these were entirely random checkboxes to fill. The worst of the writing, aside from being a little too full of corny-one-liners, is the old-fashioned antagonistic man-woman relationship between Sinbad and Marina. It isn't bad at first, but seems to get worse as the adventure progresses. Things like Sinbad exclaiming "a ship is no place for a woman," and Marina crying "ugh, men!" when the crew proves to be useless in certain situations. It feels as though the movie was made in 2003... oh, it was? Maybe more like 1993, then. Generaly, these are all interesting characters, and deserve better respect.
The production values are strong, marking one of the last extravagently-animated 2D films from America, save for a couple more in the decade to follow from Disney. Dreamworks was always good at finding a style for themselves, and this is a good evolution of that. Faces are well-chiseled, boots blend into poofy pants elegantly, swords have a distinct curve to them, and so on. The unifying style is well-designed. Action choreography is also good, and animation is generally smooth and polished, aside from a handful of odd facial expressions. The downside is the use of 3D animation to quicken the production, used more heavily than ever before for background characters that they assume the viewer isn't looking at, and now, often in the focal point for animating ships, water and large monsters. The monsters look ok by design, but never blend properly with the main characters, and when watching the animation closely of any of the 3D models (monsters or human), the poor results are noticeable. If Dreamworks did proceed with yet another 2D film, this makes one wonder if anything in it really would be 2D at all.The voice cast includes big-name Hollywood stars, bigger than any Dreamworks film before it, and even bigger than most animated films today. Brad Pitt plays the titular hero, and is surprisingly charming and well-suited for the role, making one wonder why he doesn't do more voice work (the paygrade might have something to do with it). Michelle Pfeiffer and Joseph Fiennes are also great in their roles, with only Catherine Zeta-Jones as Marina being the worst of them (and even then, a decent performance). The movie is the first for Dreamworks' 2D films to not really be a musical, but the orchestral score is memorable and well-suited for a fantasy adventure.When I write these reviews, I purposely separate grades into different categories to better pinpoint a flaw when it exists. "Sinbad - Legend of the Seven Seas" isn't that easy. It has a lot of problems, but I can't blame the entirety of the animation, or the story, or the acting. And despite the poor dialogue writing and lack of ambition, I admit the movie is still fun to sit through. One could do a lot worse for an old-fashioned adventure.