Sinbad Of The Seven Seas (1989)
The last of the four movies made by that trinity of trash consisting of Cannon Films, the Italians, and Lou Ferrigno, Sinbad of the Seven Seas allows Lou to flex his acting chops as well as his basketball-sized pecs since there's a scene where he has to act like he's seduced by an amazon. As he awkwardly lays on her in a clinch, you can almost believe that when whomever dubbed Lou's voice to say "gosh, you're beautiful" that Lou's lips also were mouthing the same words! For just a moment, I firmly believed that Sinbad, Manbeef of the Sassy Seas wasn't completely repulsed by touching female flesh!
And you better believe that this Sinbad is one sassy dame, I mean sailor. First off, his all-male sailing crew consists of a Greek and a dwarf! And guess who has a thing for short, fat midgets? Let's just say that when Sinbad playfully slapped Pucci the Dwarf on his ass, Sinbad had hulk-sized grin on face! Then there's the fact that he's prancing around in purple tights and a little brocaded vest throughout much of the movie. This proved especially uncomfortable for me as I was forced to confront the fact that I somehow knew the word "brocaded."
If ripped jocks poured into pansy tights and dwarf spankings have somehow not managed to sell you on this title yet, it's probably only because you're familiar with Lou's two previous Cannon-Italian films, Hercules and The Adventures Of Hercules and the high standards they set for this most specialized of subgenres (see also The Seven Magnificent Gladiators). I can sense that since Sinbad is the final film, you're thinking that it must have stunk to hell so badly that it killed off any future films. Nope. Not even close. There were no future films, because there wasn't any need for them.
This one just pulled out all the stops, pumped up everything Hercules and The Adventures Of Hercules did so well (mammoth gluts, pecs and traps), minimized the shortcomings of those two movies (lack of midgets, lack of kung fu buddy in rainbow colored clothes, lack of a Viking), and added all the things that were missing in them (bodybuilder sorceress, palace with trap door in floor). At the end of the day, Lou knew damn well he had climbed the mountain, conquered its highest peak, and wisely hung up his sissy tights. 
Surprisingly, the movie begins with a little literary history telling us that while Edgar Allan Poe was famous for helping to invent various genres of fiction (poems about birds, stories starring Vincent Price), he was most famous to Italians like director/co-writer Enzo Castellari and Luigi Cozzi (who somehow got a "story by" credit), for penning The Thousand-And-Second Tale of Scheherazade back in 1845.
It's an untold story of the Arabian Nights that no one has ever read, let alone heard of, thus making it the perfect vehicle for Cannon and the man who directed Bronx Warriors, Bronx Warriors 2, The New Barbarians and The Last Shark. You know - because they wouldn't have to pay anyone for the rights to the story. That's more money that can be spent on Lou's bikini waxing and bronzer.
As it turns out, it also left more money to hire relatives of the guys involved with making the film. Enzo's daughter and his brother are in it as well as Luigi's daughter. Also showing up is Daria Nicolodi, the long-time significant other of Dario Argento ( Deep Red) though she may have just gotten lost on the way to one of Dario's movies.
Nicolodi plays the mother of Luigi's daughter and these two are used in a framing sequence that sees the mother reading this story to her kid before she goes to sleep. Some may quibble that this turns out to be quite annoying and ultimately pointless, but I found it an excellent means of keeping up with the movie since I could close my eyes and doze off and not worry about missing anything because Nicolodi would invariably be blathering on, describing the on-screen action whenever I slid back into consciousness.
Don't get me wrong though, I'm sure that I was only sleepy from the sheer exhaustion of keeping up with this one! I mean, you have an entire kingdom at the mercy of an evil wizard named Jaffar! It may seem like the entire kingdom consisted of a single alleyway and some gaudily-decorated interiors to represent the palace, but remember, they also had that entire torture room set with the water tank full of piranha hand puppets.
And this wasn't just any scheming Jaffar. This was a scheming Jaffar played by John Steiner! Steiner you no doubt recall took Yor to the very limit when he appeared as the Overlord in Yor, The Hunter From The Future. Sporting evil facial hair here, Steiner ups the ante, alternately making grand pronouncements about this and that and complaining about people messing with his biorhythms. He also manages to unleash the most heinous opponent Lou would ever face, but more on that later. 
The short version goes like this: Jaffar has taken control of the city by stealing four gems. The four gems are hidden throughout the ancient world and Sinbad and his posse have to go and find them to free the kingdom, save the princess and reunite her with the prince who is part of Sinbad's crew. Before Sinbad can go out on his quest for the jewels (not to be confused with when he had to track down Zeus' seven thunderbolts in The Adventures Of Hercules), he has to escape the dungeon he falls into via the trap door in the throne room of the palace.
This is where we get our first hint of how awesome this movie will be. Down in the dungeon with Sinbad are a bunch of deadly snakes! A lazier, far flabbier Sinbad movie would probably have Sinbad get into a big snake fight with lots of shots of Sinbad holding a rubber snake to his face and pretending to struggle so as not to get bit. Lou's Sinbad? He just chats up the snakes, commiserating with them about how no one likes them (Sinbad speculates that it has to do with that story about the Garden of Eden) and eventually ties them in knots to form a big snake-rope that he uses to climb out of the dungeon and into the big torture chamber. This results in lots of slow motion shots of Sinbad punching, flipping, and throwing guys into piranha pits and an iron maiden.
Once he frees his pals, Sinbad and the gang head out to the open sea in search of the gems. They encounter all sorts of horrors in various lands along the way, most noxious of them all, the amazon queen who subjects them to a tribal dance routine! There she is shimmying and shaking in front of our tied up heroes and one by one they all pass out! The princess who is being held captive by Jaffar (he's trying to steal her life force or something with some gizmo that involves a lot of tubes filled with colored water) is forced to watch this through some of Jaffar's magic. She urges her prince to resist the dance charms of this native woman and the prince does his best, fighting off the urge to pass out from the banging moves she's busting all over! Does he succeed? Or does he succumb? I'll never tell! Mainly because I don't remember. 
Sinbad and company battle a variety of other freaks as well. There's the ship full of the undead that Sinbad first tries to fight with a bow and arrow (huh?) before going toe to toe with them. He knocks one of their heads clean off and finishes off the leader by putting his fist through the guy's chest and pulling out his heart! Well, I thought it was his heart until Sinbad and I got a look at it. It turns out it's a miniature head complete with face! There's only thing to do about that. Sinbad pops that nasty little head like a pimple and green goo splatters everywhere. There's also a rock monster, a monster that looks like a guy in big slimy fat suit, and a bunch of haunted knights. (This means lots of slow motion shots of guys clubbing empty suits of armor.)
By the time Sinbad makes it back to face Jaffar for the last time, Jaffar has obviously grown desperate because he goes nuclear on Sinbad! Using all the magic at his disposal, Jaffar conjures up...another Ferrigno! Just as powerful as our Sinbad! He knows every thought and every move the real Sinbad knows! All of Sinbad's advantages are suddenly nullified! What follows can only be described as the most intense all-Lou struggle ever captured on film! So evenly matched are these two that not much more happens beyond lots of straining, gritting of teeth, grunting and clutching various body doubles who are filmed from behind. It ends the only it could - by having good Sinbad flip bad Sinbad into a fiery pit somehow.
And do you how tough this Sinbad is? With Jaffar defeated, Sinbad exacts his revenge by forcing him to... resign as the king's wizard! I don't know what Jaffar was moping around about - that sounds a lot better on your resume than "fired for trying to take over the kingdom and draining the princess' lifeforce." But that wasn't the last surprise. That would have to be when Sinbad goes and gets married! To a woman! And she wasn't even a dwarf! I would make a comment about the clean shaven Sinbad finally acquiring a beard, but I'm pretty sure I've made that one before in reference to an earlier sword and sandal movie. But not to worry hunk fans. Sinbad may be walking off with his new bride, but he's walking off in a very silky, very flamboyantly colored blouse! And I bet that doesn't disturb your biorhythms at all!
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