Minotauro

Minotaur was not a brilliant movie. And in all honesty, I wasn't expecting it to be, in fact considering SyFY'S reputation I was expecting much worse. There are problems, but to my surprise Minotaur was one of SyFy's more tolerable movies. The film surprisingly looks great, unlike other SyFy movies you can actually see and somewhat understand what's going on, the photography is not too slipshod, a decent job is done to make the setting believable and the scenery is really quite stunning. The music is another improvement, not forgettable or sluggish but often well-orchestrated with a couple of rousing moments. The main female character is also beautiful and doesn't fall into the trap of being too vapid, and while I think Tom Hardy knew the script was bad and overdid it sometimes there is an element of charisma about it that has been sorely lacking in other fantasy/adventure SyFy movies. The minotaur is rather unconvincing, with the quality coming across as choppy computer-game-ish, but I have seen far worse effects before. Besides the minotaur is quite menacing, again another improvement on other SyFy monsters. Minotaur also has a lot of faults, starting with the insipid dialogue and clichéd and personality-less(generally) characters and ending with a rather predictable and at times ridiculous story that takes time to get going in some of the cave/labyrinth sequences and Tony Todd(who was so brilliant in Candyman) overacting embarrassingly, like Danny Glover in Age of the Dragons and (I know this next example isn't SyFy but still) Jeremy Irons in Dungeons & Dragons he chews the scenery to pieces. Overall, not a brilliant movie and has a lot wrong with it but tolerable, compared to other things that SyFy have done. 5/10 Bethany Cox

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.

If you ever find yourself in conversation with Tom Hardy at some cocktail party (one can dream), Minotaur is the film you bring up to both flabbergast and embarrass him, if only for your own amusement. It's one of those low budget sword & sorcery schlock-fests that the SyFy channel used to broadcast at two in the morning on sleepy Saturday nights, to serve as background noise for whatever hedonistic shenanigans are going on in the living room. It's Tom's first ever starring role, and therefore should never be forgotten, like those old camcorder tapes of kids learning to ride sans training wheels for the first time. The story borrows from the legend, adding its own lurid, t&a soaked flair that only SyFy can get just right. Tom plays the son of a Viking chieftain (a brief Rutger Hauer), who goes looking for his true love, one among a few of the village's youngsters who get kidnapped every year by a freaky pseudo African tribe of weirdos who sacrifice youths to the mythical Minotaur, residing in rocky catacombs beneath their city's surface. Led by supreme weirdo Deucalion (Candyman's Tony Todd, hamming up every scene), who fervently wants to impregnate his own hot sister (chill, dude), and oversees this theatrical occult ritual with obscene relish. This is one of those creature features where you barely see the beast for the first two thirds of the film, save for a quick snaggle of fur or fang rushing by in the shadows, and suspiciously looking like a bearskin rug cello taped to antlers and a hobby horse. Hardy does get an eventual confrontation with the Minotaur late in the game and deep in the maze, providing a few schlocky moments that are worth the ride, but it's silly stuff most of the time, scraping the bottom of a barrel that does lower than the maze of the bull. Totally tagging Tom in thee blog post though in hopes that he sees this and it brightens his day just a bit.

A loose retelling of the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.

With so many terrible bad films having been made over the last 15 years or so it's actually worth revisiting director Jonathan English offering. Not just because Tom Hardy has since become a star but it's one of the few Minotaur films out there, which is a shame given it's such a great myth.

It could be pacer and less would have been scarier for the monster design. The sets, costume and score are impressive and the cast features the likes of Tony Todd, (Hammer Horror legend) Ingrid Pitt and Blade Runner's Rutger Hauer.

It is average monster movie but it's certainly worth a look.

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.