The late Ray Harryhausen was an icon, a throwback to imagination and class. His clay models could never fool an adult; they weren’t supposed to. They were supposed to thrill a prepubescent child, make him believe that Jason was fighting an armed skeleton or that Perseus was taming a gorgon. They worked because they were real enough. I would love to see his work again, or some homage to it. I can’t believe I was actually looking forward to Sinbad: the Fifth Voyage.
Before I get into my usual spiel of “Why the Fifth? What was so special about #5 that you’d skip over #1-#4?” I’d like to discuss Claymation as a cinematic art form. It looks fake. You know that. I know that. So it has to be -how shall I put this?- better. Animation is up to CGI level now, which has flaws, but I think we can all agree presents much better definition than Claymation. So, Claymation, how do you respond? Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage failed. It presented some wonderful Claymation figures: a blue Martian warrior, a six-armed guard, sword-fightin’ skeletons, a giant vulture … ok, I see your animator has modeling experience. But really, the key to Claymation is the animating, not the modeling. The blue warrior? Pointed his spear a few times, did a small baton routine and vanished without fighting anybody – this happened early on and would prove the very BEST of the animated sequences. Giant vulture picked a guy up, put a guy down. Hey, slow down there. Don’t wear yourself out. The six-armed Vishnu guy chose to fight with just two arms and the reckless abandon of a sleeping tree sloth. He still managed to outduel Sinbad (Shahin Sean Solimon), whose fencing skills are on par with your average sea slug, and then got kicked into the lava. My personal favorite, however, was the skeleton who was killed with a thrust to his imaginary gut. I’m sorry, did I just see that?
Ahhhhhhhh, I see now what happened. Shahin Sean Solimon wrote, directed and starred himself. Each of these jobs is much better left to an actual professional. The bald-headed Shahin, however, so fancies himself as the Persian sailor of legend that he drowned in the role. I wouldn’t have guessed Sinbad is a role that could be mishandled. You pull out your sword, you push some clay, you look surprised, you kiss a girl, and you try to hide wood in your enormous parachute pants. There. *poof* acting! Shahin and his crew 
proved me wrong. Every single scene was a convoluted game of “Guess the Expression!” Umm… hate! Fear! Mild annoyance! Constipation! I think there’s a good drinking game to this.
So let me now get back to my standard and obvious line of inquiry – why “The Fifth Voyage,” Shahin? Is it because you’re pleading the fifth when asked to explain this mess? You know it reeks of other mis-numberings like Leonard Part 6 and Loaded Weapon 1, right? At least those failures were intended to be comedies. The seemingly random selection of tale suggests this was the strongest story to tell. With all 1,001 Arabian Nights to choose among, you picked the one where a vulture picks a guy up and puts him down while everybody with a sword backs away. Truly magical. The rest of the tale? Evil sorcerer steals the princess; guy completely unable to complete the task at hand takes it upon himself to sail his yacht (yes, yacht, what century are we supposed to be in, Sinbad?) in an arbitrary direction to find her. The encounters of fantastic creatures along the way have a decent look, but no follow through as if Ray Harryhausen’s untalented nephew were allowed to play in his studio for an afternoon.
Wished I’d joined him.
♪Well it’s not far down to bottomfeed, at least it’s not for me
If the clay is right, you can spar away embarrassingly
Oh the green screen can do miracles, for people other than me
Scaling, takes me away
To a place no one believes
Just a dream and amateur-ity
This crap must be free♫
Rated PG-13, 89 Minutes
D: Shahin Sean Solimon
W: Shahin Sean Solimon, Evelyn Gabai
Genre: Failed homage
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: I dunno, that animator’s mother, maybe?
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Ray Harryhausen
♪ Parody Inspired by “Sailing”
