Sinbad and the War of the Furies (2016)

On a treasure hunt gone wrong, modern-day adventurer Sinbad accidentally releases the Furies, three beautiful but terrible ancient beings powerful enough to threaten life on Earth.

REVIEW: The Asylum has pretty much always been my favorite low budget B-Movie production company ever since I first really started getting into and doing reviews for B-Movies back in the early 2000s. Since then, Asylum has consistently been putting out two (and on some occasions, even more) movies per month, so we always had a great B-Movie variety pack to choose from. However, these last couple years, with the SyFy Channel producing less and less Original Movies, and Asylum's own TV Show, Z Nation, taking flight as a force to be reckoned with, it seems Asylum has majorly cut back on the amount of movies they make, putting out usually only one a month now at most, and sometimes even entire months go by in between any new release.

I figured that would mean the few that they do release would be of the utmost highest quality (by low budget Asylum standards anyway), however time and time again I've been let down (Dead 7, Independent's Day, Jurassic School, Trolland, and Sinister Squad were all horribly disappointing for me, and even their annual Sharknado release last year, Sharknado 4: The Fourth Awakens was their weakest entry yet in that franchise), so it's no secret to those that know me that my undying love for all things Asylum has been quickly dwindling. No longer do I rush to instantly check out their newest release, instead just getting around to it whenever I feel like rolling those dice, sometimes months after its release. Now, don't get me wrong, there are still the occasional Asylum release I highly enjoy (Zoombies, Ghosthunters, Ice Sharks, and Planet of the Sharks being four from last year that I really loved), but it seems the ones I enjoy are in short supply these days, compared to what it used to be.

Sinbad and the War of the Furies, one of their more recent releases that took me a bit of time to get around to watching was, luckily, not among the ones that I hate, but unfortunately it's not really all that good either.

You would expect a movie with Sinbad in the title (as a character I mean, and not starring the actor) to be an adventure-filled romp through the high seas, vast sandy deserts, and perhaps even lush jungles, however Asylum's latest Sinbad-based film is sorely lacking in that fun sense of adventure. It starts off pretty great, with Sinbad and his sidekick hunting for a lost treasure in a cave system on a tropical island where they run afoul deadly arms dealers that plague them the rest of the movie, as well as accidentally unleash the ancient supernatural Furies of Greek lore, and I was really into it at this point, however it doesn't take long for the movie to leave this locale and head straight to the boring bustling city of Los Angeles, where the remainder of the movie takes place. Actually, it would be more accurate to say the remainder of the movie takes place in one house in Los Angeles, and it's here that the movie slows right down to a crawl until almost the very end. Now, I don't know if it's just me, but I don't expect the majority of a Sinbad movie to be characters standing around in a room talking, but unfortunately that's what this one is. Granted, it does get pretty fun again in the last twenty minutes of the movie as all the open plot threads converge on that house for an all-out brawl, but by that point it just feels like too little too late.

It certainly didn't help matters during that long lull that the acting in this one is pretty dreadful, even by Asylum standards. However, with that said, there were two actors that stood out above the rest as actually being quite good and genuinely funny that actually went a long way to somewhat saving the movie for me as they were always enjoyable to watch when they were on-screen, especially in the same scene as one another - John Morrison as the title character and Josh Fingerhut as Manta, the main human villain. These two stole the show during their time on-screen and seeing as how John Morrison is in almost every scene, he single-handily saved this movie for me with his charisma, perfect comedic timing and line delivery, and fun fight choreography. 

Now, I realize I've been pretty harsh on this movie up to this point, and while it's true that there's a lot that really annoyed me here, I also have to admit that there is quite a few things I did enjoy as well. As mentioned above, John Morrison and Josh Fingerhut were easily the highlight aspects of this movie, elevating even the most dragged out stale scenes just that little bit higher due to their comedic performances and laugh-out-loud line deliveries, but what enjoyment there is to be found here is not all solely on them either. For instance, the way that writer Scotty Mullen tied the lore of the Furies into Sinbad's family history was genius, and the way he implemented various aspects of the Furies' lore and their powers into the movie was consistently fun. There's also a few plot twists throughout, and while some are easy to see from a mile away, there are others that took me by surprise when they came up and I always have to applaud that.

Honestly, Sinbad and the War of the Furies is one of those entries in Asylum's filmography that I'll probably never revisit, however I also don't regret watching it as a One-Time View either. Granted there is quite a lot I dislike about this movie and felt many things could have been done much better, but the things I did enjoy helped elevate it a bit and make it easy to look past some of the shortcomings. With that said, if you're a B-Movie fan and in the mood for some random modern-day set Sinbad movie, Asylum's previous (and unrelated) Sinbad movie, the 7 Adventures of Sinbad, is a much better, more well-made, and all around more enjoyable attempt at telling a Sinbad adventure story.

5/10 Rooms in the Psych Ward