Minotaur (2006)

Powerful

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

In an ancient time and place ("Minotaur" was filmed on location in Luxembourg, both interiors and exteriors), people that tended towards "hedonism and greed" needed a god that was somehow more tangible, one of flesh. So they contrived one by impregnating their Queen, who gives birth to this thing. Naturally, things get way out of control, and soon a regular requirement of sacrifices of the young comes about to keep the beast in check. One young man, Theo (Tom Hardy of "Layer Cake", "RocknRolla", "Bronson", and "Inception", etc.) is led to believe that a lost love of his, a past sacrifice to this thing, is still alive so he agrees to take on the challenge of determining if the Minotaur is really so much of a "god" and can actually be killed. Normally, when we watch stuff like this, we expect a lot of silliness and a lot of cheese and know not to take it terribly seriously. "Minotaur", however, which is inspired by Greek mythology, does go out of its way, for a while, to keep these elements at bay and deliver a somber, moody, foreboding kind of tale - and it works pretty well. Granted, before too long, the mostly inane characters cease to maintain any sort of interest and it becomes tedious watching these people get picked off. The actors who come off the best are Tony Todd (not surprisingly), who's magnetic as usual even if there's a definite feel of Candyman to his performance, and the absolutely luscious Michelle Van Der Water as the sister to Todd's character (one fun kinky touch is that Todd loves her more than as just a sibling, which doesn't exactly sit well with her), who's tired of the senseless deaths and tries to defy him. The actors playing the would be victims don't have enough to work with to register very strongly, but there is the attraction of seeing some veterans in the form of Rutger Hauer (whose disappearance from the story is rather disappointing) and the legendary, sultry Ingrid Pitt, who's actually unrecognizable, buried under heavy makeup, as the cave dwelling Leper. The creature gets a reveal sooner than this viewer would have liked, but it's reasonably impressive - big, bad, and ugly, and done with both digital and practical effects. There's some nastiness for gore hounds, although a lack of real detail (there's too much stuff taking place off screen, for one thing) will likely leave them less than satisfied. Not exactly that good, but not all that bad either; it may amuse the genre fan who doesn't demand too much from what they watch. Six out of 10.

I've got a bit of history with the SciFi original movies, I used to watch them all the time whenever there was absolutely nothing on TV, and nine times out of ten that was the case. But I saw previews for this movie and said to myself "that looks interesting, I think I'll watch it." I think the SciFi channel(now re-titled SyFy and they're constantly ridiculed for it)has a lot of problems with their original movies. Whenever they have to create an original idea, well you get stuff like Dark Relic, Riverworld, Ice Spiders etc. But then there are movies like The Wraiths of Roanoke, which is pretty damn good if you ask me, Abominable, which I regard as one of the best Bigfoot movies ever even if the Monster looks goofy. Minotaur if you ask me is one of the HIGHLY superior original movies. It does move a little too fast in the beginning and it's not really all that intriguing but when you have Tony Todd play a villain things always get more interesting. The characters in this movie are all likable to some extent, well okay maybe not the screamer girl but to her credit she does have a Lesbian scene for what it's worth. The story in this movie is a retelling of Thesius but done in the way a Monster movie is. That's kinda genius, sure I can talk all day about how the Minotaur from Greek Mythology doesn't look a thing like the one in the movie, in fact the movie Minotaur is more like a big ass bull with a skull face than anything, and he's supposed to be half man/half bull. But I can forgive that because the special effects the use for him are surprisingly top notch.I don't know why it has such a low score on IMDb, I'm guessing it's more critics whining about what they think it should be or something, when you get to the bare bones of this movie(if you watch it that joke is actually kinda funny) is this. It's a monster movie version of Thesius, you really can't do any better than what we have here.

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.

If this were the 80's this movie would've been released directly to video. Now it should be DVD. If you have too much time and you're into b-movies, than you might like this. Although if you really have too much time, why not watching a good movie instead? We all have different tastes, so some people might actually like this. But the majority won't and the(ir) reasons will be the following ones: bad acting, bad script and not really the highest production values. Of course the latter is understandable, it's a low budget movie. There is nothing really good about this movie and even a Tony Todd can't save it. But since I have seen worse pictures (at least you can see they're trying here and my b-movie fable might also play a role), I gave it 3 stars!