Minotaur is nothing short of a monster slasher film set in the Iron Age. Rutger Hauer is the ruler of a small village, and the people are forced every so often to send 8 youths to this bigger African kingdom so they can sacrifice them to their Minotaur. Hauer's son decides to stowaway on board the ship that's taking the latest group of sacrifices, instead of hideaway like his dad wants so he can become the next ruler. Once he boards that ship, we no longer see Hauer again. The kids arrive at the same time that the king, played by The Candyman, and a really hot woman who's his sister, are fighting over the kingdom. The sister enlists Hauer's son's help to destroy the king and the Minotaur. They're put in the Labyrinth, which is a big underground place where the Minotaur lives, and after the cast is thinned out some, as in every slasher film, that's just what he does.
Other than Hauer, the best part about this film was the queen, played by this really hot woman. She's not in the film enough. The movie would've been better if it just had her and Hauer, and they were trying to defeat the Minotaur. You wouldn't even have to set it so far in the past. Make it today.
I don't know what the film makers were going for here. I didn't get the African kingdom that went by sea to attack the sheep herders. I guess it was an invented world. The Candyman had these gross long black nails, which were just weird. The people in the kingdom inhaled this distorted film effect out of a bull's skull, that I guess was supposed to be a gas. It made two of the female sacrifices want to make out with each other.
The Minotaur was dumb too. Instead of being this dude with a bull's head, he was a big CGI bull. I don't know why they didn't just use Jason or Freddy. That would've been way better, if it was set in the past, but the African kingdom worshiped Jason, and when the sacrifices were dipped into the labyrinth, you could hear the che-che-che-ah-ah-ah-ah... Even better, set it in modern times, call it Friday the Thirteenth XI, and have Hauer and the woman that played the queen hunting him down. Now that's hot.
I've loved Hauer since Blade Runner and the The Hitcher, and it just kind of hurts when I'm saddled with the bait and switch. It was worse with Hunt for Eagle One: Crash Point, because he wasn't in that one at all. I wondered when I saw on IMDb that he'd done 4 movies in 2006 how he did that many, and now having seen three of the four, I understand: put them all together it doesn't equal one real film role. I think DTV film makers just know what kind of a draw he is to us, so they sign him for a few minutes of screen time, then plaster his name all over the cover. I hope he gets paid accordingly.
If you like the monster slasher genre, you might be all right with this one. I've seen better, but I've seen worse, too. Don't buy this, maybe rent it cheap, and watch it on Sci-Fi if you ain't got nothing else going on. Don't go out of your way for it, though. It's just not worth it.
For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0415160/
Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment