Sinbad and the Minotaur

This film is lacking in several places: two of my main gripes are a better script and better actors. Costuming was fine to me, cinematography so-so but the CGI was awful even for today's low budget films.

Where was the Minotaur? It was just a large CGI bull. The end battle with Sinbad and this Bull (Minotaur) was super fast and terrible - not the great battle we would expect from this type of movie.

2/10

Sinbad (Manu Bennett) steals the Chronicles of the King Minos from the camp of the evil sorcerer Al-Jibar (Steven Grives) with the location of the golden head of the Colossus of Rhodes. He also saves the slave Tara (Holly Brisley) and brings her to his ship.

Sinbad sails with Tara and his crew to the Island of Minos and they meet a village of descents of Minos. They learn that the treasure is guarded by the Minotaur in a labyrinth and Sinbad gets rid of the beast. When they are celebrating, Al-Jibar arrives in the village with the flesh eater Seif (Jared Robinson) and his army, and demands the scroll for him. Out of the blue, the villagers turn into beasts and attack the outsiders. Who will survive?

"Sinbad and the Minotaur" is a lame movie with a good story and awful acting and costumes. The non-charismatic Manu Bennett looks like Rambo or a marine with his hair cut and his acting is limited to grimaces. Lily Brown is histrionic in the role of the priestess Arianna. The villains Al-Jibar and Seif are sinister and Holly Brisley is very sexy. Despite the low-budget, the acting and costumes could be better. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Sinbad e o Minotauro" ("Sinbad and the Minotaur")

The movie is no "Lord of the Rings," of course, but given the constraints of budget and more limited application of SFX, it is fairly acceptable, quite watchable, and better than the majority of recent low-budget productions that one can see on the SyFy channel these days. There is humor and deliberate irony of classic myth, as well as self-conscious parody at times, which, I believe, goes quite well to disperse any attempts to take things all too seriously. The acting is also acceptable - this particular representation of Sinbad, for example, just like Beowulf, is supposed to be a blend between the arrogance, yet zesty adventure-loving nature of an Indiana Jones and the ridiculous ego-mania of a Narcissus - and the lead delivers both reasonably well. Do not expect a great adventure tale; yet, the movie is fair and definitely watchable...

You know what you are getting with this movie, so don't set your expectations up too high.

This is one of those type of movies that were made with all the right intentions, but faltered under horrible CGI effects. If you enjoy fantasy and mythical adventures, then you might find some enjoyment in "Sinbad and the Minotaur", just prepare to ward your eyes away from some gut-wrenching abysmal CGI effects.

Story-wise, then "Sinbad and the Minotaur" is straight forward and very easy to follow. It is a fast paced movie, and that worked well in favor of the movie. And the action sequences were actually quite alright as well.

As for the acting, well, it was adequate but nothing outstanding or memorable. And it was a shame that they didn't have any famous actors or actresses to star in the movie in order to lift up the standards.

There are far better fantasy movies out there, and "Sinbad and the Minotaur" wasn't memorable enough to stand out in the genre.

I watched Sinbad and the Minotaur with nothing else better to do, but while I was dubious of whether it would work it turned out to be worse than I expected. Production values-wise, it's a cheap-looking film, with costumes reminiscent of bad fancy dress, scenery that is not authentic at all and camera work that looks flat and rushed. I have seen worse effects in my lifetime, but although I do realise it was low-budget Sinbad and the Minotaur doesn't in my view look as though a lot of effort went into it. The minotaur has some menace but is too much of a giant bull rather than half-man/half-bull from mythology. The dialogue is terribly cheesy, but hilariously so at the same time, and while the idea was good the story was dull with no genuine thrills, imagination, fun and suspense and everything screams of being done before in adventure/fantasy films and better. The direction is sloppy, and the acting is pretty atrocious, with Manu Bennett having none of the charisma needed for the role of Sinbad. In fairness though, the characters are not interesting at all and have no life to them, the villain is especially flat. In conclusion, an awful film but if you watch it for novelty value you might get some enjoyment out of it. 1/10 Bethany Cox