Minotauro

In this take on the Minotaur story, Tom Hardy is cast as Theseus (called "Theo" for some reason), shipped off to the snowy shores of the Mediterranean to be stuck in labyrinth beneath the palace of Tony Todd.

I appreciate the effort to recast the Greek legend as a modern horror story about some hot teenagers wandering around in a cave with a gigantic bull seeking to kill them. As someone who actually read these stories and return to them occasionally, I am annoyed by the changes which serve no purpose. Why change the number of proposed sacrifices, and how often? Yes, I know. This movie was not made for me. Perhaps the changes render the story more meaningful to its intended audience on the Sci-Fi Channel in some manner I do not understand.

I watched this movie expecting to be disappointed and bored to tears, but I was actually quite entertained.

The writers use the legendary Minotaur to create a new mythology around the beast for this film. The monster is created by a people who worship the bull and wished to have a living god. Interestingly, they chose to make the Minotaur white, no doubt to give props to the original myth.

The plot is fairly predictable, but with enough surprises and suspenseful moments to keep it interesting. The characters stay true to being primitive, ancient people. They are simple and their reactions are less than logical, but many horror movies have been built on bad reactions to scary things. The characters lack depth, but I don't think it's inappropriate considering the nature of the film.

The Minotaur itself is well put together. The effects are simple, but not bad. As I was watching I wasn't thinking about how poorly done the effects were or how much better they could've been. In other words, the effects didn't detract from the film without being devoid of effects--a rare thing in movies of this caliber.

The movie begins with an overview of the mythology for the film and sets up the plot very quickly. The rest of the movie takes place in the labyrinth and the palace above it where we encounter bizarre hedonists in a brother/sister prince and princess combo.

The movie is not terrible, nor spectacular. All in all, it was a treat for me to see someone use the Minotaur in a film.

I lived on Crete for two years so I am familiar with the story of the Minotaur and the Labyrynth. They took that story and made some monster flick about how one dude (Tom Hardy from Layer Cake) found out his girlfriend was still alive in the maze and he set out to save her and the village. I do have to say I was most impressed with th Temple and the blood-drinking leader. I was even more impressed with Queen Raphaella - Michelle Van Der Water.

Was it a complete waste? No, the special effects were good, the monster was ghastly, and the action was what you would expect from a sci-fi film. Again, worth a look for Michelle Van Der Water.

Just Another Poorly Made TV Movie.

A combination of poor script, minimal SFX, and wild over-acting by Todd and company make this a pretty sad take on the well-known myth. Corn syrup blood spews and there's a lot of noise. That's about it.

I did derive a bit of pleasure from trying to sort out all the different influences on Todd's portrayal of the "psycho" potentate. It's Frank Booth ("Blue Velvet") meets Thulsa Doom ("Conan the Barbarian"), with a bit of Jabba the Hutt thrown in for good measure. Until you've seen someone taking a "hit" off a cattle skull, you haven't seen good cinema.

There's some vague hope that things will pick up, until the victims are tossed into the labyrinth. From that point forward, it's a complete waste of time...typical monster-in-a-cave fare. You could probably make a drinking game out of it, though...everyone slams a shot whenever a foam rubber rock moves.

Save your time and rent "Jason and the Golden Fleece" or some other film that is at least a little entertaining.

Years ago, the people grew so greedy and hedonistic that they were no longer satisfied with worshiping a mythical god, so the Queen had sex with a bull and produced the Minotaur. Didn't turn out so good, a few deaths were involved, and the creature was placed in a labyrinth beneath the palace. Now every third year eight people are cast into the labyrinth as a sacrifice.

This had surprisingly high production values for a Sci-Fi original. All the sets were quite nicely done, and even the Minotaur looked very good. On the bad side, the characters just didn't have much character, nor screen presence, and it got pretty boring towards the middle. The worst part was that, when trapped in a series of caves with a killer critter, what would a person do? Perhaps be quiet so as not to attract the attention of the beast? Not these folks. The main character especially seems almost incapable of grasping the situation; He yells at the top of his lungs on numerous occasions. Once, the Minotaur is only a few feet away and the guy still can't shut up. He's also convinced that his girlfriend, who was sacrificed three years earlier, might still be alive somehow. I couldn't quite figure out how anyone could be so dumb as to believe such a thing. There's also a woman who screams a lot - not just a regular scream, but a long, long scream. Maybe ten seconds in duration. That's a real joy to listen to.

Two of the more entertaining characters are the high priest and priestess who are in charge of the kingdom. The priest likes smoking from a bull skull, and wants to get it on with the priestess. Seeing that she's his sister, she's rather cool on the idea, and jumps into the labyrinth as well. She's about the only interesting person down there. And one of the few people who speaks in such a manner that you can understand her. I missed a lot of mumbled dialog in this movie, but I don't think it served much purpose anyway.

Overall, I think the Sci-Fi Channel may be getting a little better at movie making (they've certainly had enough practice). This one was almost good.