Minotaur

Welcome to the CITIZEN KANE of Sci-Fi Channel movies. Not that MINOTAUR is faultless. It's just competent on so many more levels than your average Sci Fi-Schlock Fest that it appears great in comparison.

We have some actual acting going on. Granted, there is some great scenery chewing, but it's on a grand scale. There are some good effects. There are some epic looking landscapes and the occasional set. And the script and direction are actually acceptable.

On the down side, there's the same CGI overkill that seems to haunt every Sci Fi monster flick. Thankfully, this is kept to a minimum. We're also stuck in the same labyrinth/cave sets for way too long. And every so often I couldn't help feeling that plot points were being cribbed from a Terry Jones film.

But these are minor quibbles. There's some attempt here to breathe life into the monster on the loose genre. Not bad at all.

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.

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'm a real fun of mythology from wherever part of the world, Grece, Italy, Norway, etc, whatever kind of movie of this genre I see and I play PC-games too, such as Age of mythology or Titans. When "Minotaur" started, the woman's words at the beginning made me feel eager for a interesting movie, but minute by minute, that excitement was going down. I waited for something better, the effects didn't like me too much, especially when the beast was running, the plot was weak. I think that this kind of movie should have a good argument, may be from the real myth, and good special effects for being a nice film where you, furthermore you enjoy the movie, learn about Mythology. Really a so so movie.

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.