Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The hundreds of animation artists on this three-year project made enormous contributions to the final film. There is not an off-kilter moment nor awkward effect in the entire movie.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

That it works is because of the high-energy animation, some genuinely beautiful visual concepts and a story that's a little more sensuous than we expect in animation.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Ray Harryhausen's original stop-motion Sinbad classics are a hard act to follow, but Tim Johnson and Patrick Gilmore's update, couched in a gorgeous palette of indigo and dark rose, is a big, beautiful thrill all its own.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Good but not legendary.

Miami Herald Christine Dolen

Isn't much more than the tale of a ''bad'' guy getting in touch with his good side, as well as a love story that makes monster-loving little boys go ''yuck!'' And that's what's too bad about Sinbad.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The voices were chosen more for their big name appeal than for their ability to bring life to the drawings. The storyline is flat, linear, and shallow.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Neither sinful nor particularly bad, the movie nonetheless diverts us when it should transport us. Its heroes' hearts may lie out at sea, but its soul never leaves dry land.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

An uneasy mix of hand-painted characters and digitally rendered photorealistic backgrounds, the film never fully reconciles its two-dimensional and three-dimensional worlds.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Brad Pitt and Michelle Pfeiffer? Great to look at. Astonishingly dull to listen to.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Given the talent on display in Sinbad, and the winning brio it dredges out of questionable material, it's easy to wonder what Dreamworks' animation department could accomplish if it stopped following Disney's lead and started forging new paths of its own.

Chicago Reader Bill Stamets

The heaving computer-generated sea swells doesn't match the conventionally animated characters. The action scenes are too antic, but directors Tim Johnson and Patrick Gilmore serve up a sweet romantic subplot.

Village Voice Ed Park

Adept and generally enjoyable.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

To invoke the name of another underwhelming new film, Sinbad is legally bland.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

As two-dimensional animation, Sinbad is passably attractive, reaching a visual height when it arrives in the surreal, shifting Tartarus.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

It makes not just the "Thief of Baghdad" and the junky Ray Harryhausen movies of the '60s and '70s but even Disney's recent "Aladdin" seem positively multicultural by comparison.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The story may be too slow and complicated for the youngest moviegoers.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

All Sinbad has going for it is Pfeiffer's Eris.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

The ploddingly literal screenplay by John Logan doesn't help matters.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

A movie carefully engineered for an audience of exactly nobody.

San Francisco Chronicle C.W. Nevius

Predictable.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Ray Conlogue

Sinbad lacks, alas, the sparkle and inventiveness of the stories that inspired it.

Newsweek David Ansen

Comes off as surprisingly unmagical, with characters you only half care about.

Variety Todd McCarthy

In its animated work, DreamWorks has repeatedly flip-flopped between the hip and the square. This time out, it's as if the company tried to apply a hip approach to a square subject, with unresolved results.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A pleasure to look at. It's filled with fine, imaginative moves and an overarching sense of visual freedom, a feeling of play that entices us into enjoyment. But, when it comes to dialogue and story, this Sinbad apparently used up all its initiative changing its hero's ethnicity to generic Greco-Roman.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

This voyage is strictly one for the disposable present, however quaintly old-fashioned the hand-drawn work that the animators have blended with 3D effects. (Tots will twitch during the grown-up relationship parts, and teens will groan at the kiddie sops.)

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Logan's so carried away by computerized magic that he forgets to make sense.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

A respectable effort that doesn't care to do more than course smoothly and effortlessly through familiar waters.

TV Guide Angel Cohn

The characters are mostly flat and unoriginal -- - but Pfeiffer delivers a wonderfully villainous voice performance.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

People who see Sinbad for its star power--a big selling point in the movie’s marketing campaign--are being oversold.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Feels like the little animated adventure nobody loved.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

All the magic at the disposal of today's filmmakers cannot bring to life this unappealing animated children's movie.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

What's missing is an emotional center. This Sinbad, with its flying ship and becalmed script, seems destined to be DreamWorks's version of Disney's "Treasure Planet."

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

A misfire in almost every direction.