Minotaur (DVD)

Minotaur is bloody at times, and it does take place in the Iron Age. There are supernatural elements. But it is not a "thriller". In fact, you'd need a cattle prod to get me to watch this one again. Let's just say I'm not bullish on Minotaur.

The beginning of the movie demonstrates how the minotaur (half-bull, half-human… all-insane) was born, and how it became a creature of legend. Most of this is shown in tasteful drawings (apparently bovines known as minos prefer the missionary position when copulating with wanton maidens).

Then we meet the inhabitants of a generic Iron Age village called Thena, where the minotaur gets most of its food supply. Every so often the bearded, unwashed elders (chief among them Cyman, played solemnly by Rutger Hauer) send their youngest, hottest, most tender and shapely young'uns to the minotaur's palace where they are ceremoniously sacrificed to him. When Cyman's son, strapping Theseus (Tom Hardy), finds out that the love of his life, blonde and bodacious Ffion (Donata Janietz), has been sent to satisfy the bull's bloodlust, he sets off to rescue her.

Theseus smuggles himself into the minotaur's grand palace along with a group of human sacrifices and learns that the Minotaur is attended to by the Minoan king, Deucalion (Tony Todd), and his sister, the princess Raphaella (Michelle Van Der Water). Finally, we get a little zeal in the too-serious story. Todd and Van Der Water do not play their roles as eeeevil rulers too over the top, but you can tell they're relishing it. The minotaur's salacious guardians are a refreshing change of pace from the melba-toast cardboard cutouts from Thena.

Much of the movie takes place in the underground labyrinth where the bloodthirsty bull-god makes his home. Here, the horror is similar to other confined cinema offerings like the Cube or Saw movies, or even Alien Vs. Predator, but there are no clever cat-and-mouse games. There are no freaky twists and turns in the creature's lair. There is nothing but trite dialogue, assembly-line killings on the sharp horns of the minotaur, and hand-wringing romantic angst as Theseus searches every dark corner for his lost love.

The dialogue-heavy "adventure" seems even more dreary, hampered as it is by flat cinematography and a listless musical score.

Tony Todd is great as the nefarious king, and the sparkling Van Der Water is a good foil for him… but that can only carry Minotaur so far. Mostly we are stuck in a maze of boredom with a bland hero and a half-rotted, mangy animatronic/CGI monster that inspires about as much fear as the cud-chewing cows in the California Cheese commercials.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson