BlazeLime
Strong and Moving!
SunnyHello
Nice effects though.
Gurlyndrobb
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
NateWatchesCoolMovies
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.
TheLittleSongbird
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
Bill Shroyer
Not too bad as far as sci-fi m-f-TV movies go. I must object, however, to the complaints by some critics regarding the manner in which the myth of the minotaur was changed to suit this film: If you don't think one should alter a myth to suit contemporary sensibilities, there is but one word that totally knocks that notion down: Vampires. If any myth has ever been changed to better suit a newer age, it's the vampire myth. And I don't see anyone objecting to how that's been changed so dramatically over the years. Minotaurs are no different with regard to how "inalienable" ancient myths of them go. In fact, revising myth to suit modern times is practically an _obligation_ of theater - if theater fails to speak to the audience of the day and it's not a period piece, then it isn't theater, period.
bobwildhorror
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.
