Sinbad Legend of the Seven Seas

Divesting the Sinbad legend of any tricky Arabic trappings in favour of a vaguely Greco-Roman orientation, DreamWorks' animation has been 'politically corrected', you might say. Not that you look to legend for the facts, but this version goes so far as to invent a whole new divinity, Eris, goddess of chaos - who enlists Sinbad's help to get her slippery hands on the 'book of peace'. Our piratical rogue doesn't take too much convincing, but a double-cross puts his head on the block. Wounded pride, threats, bribery, a smidgen of nascent decency and an eyeful of the beseeching Marina inspire Sinbad to sail off into the horizon to put the world to rights. The merits of an all-star voice cast in this instance escape me but at least the animation breaks out of kitsch Mediterranea for several dynamic supernatural set pieces. In general, the chaos principle is a pragmatic screenwriter's standby: whenever the episodic narrative flags, Eris pops up to goose it along with some new mischief. The mortals can't really compete.