Too many fans seem to be blown away

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Long ago in the Iron Age, a shadow loomed over a lonely village. For generations, the village youths are stolen from their families and delivered as sacrifice to a mythical beast - the Minotaur that dwells beneath a great palace. Theo, haunted by the loss of his love in an earlier sacrifice is convinced that the beast isn't real, and that his girl still lives as a slave within the palace. Minotaur was one heck of an awful low budget film, the creature looked better than usual but still not good enough, the perfomances were horrible especially Tom Hardy's and the film was more on the romantic side than the horror one that it needed. Definitely one hell of a horrible horror sci-fi movie. (0/10)

I have to admit I liked this one even better on a second viewing. Director Jonathan English really had good intentions and a limited budget at his disposal, and somehow he made it all work. Of course, spoiled audiences who like to compare any fantasy/horror movie to "LotR" standards will beg to differ on this, I'm sure. But if you know a bit about the history of this film, then you'd probably appreciate the result a bit more. No, I'm not here to nag. Jonathan English clearly knows how to make a monster movie, that's all I'm saying."Minotaur" is a bit of a strange mixture: It starts off as an epic Greek tale of myth & legends, but about halfway through, it squeezes itself into some sort of slasher format (with the villain being the fiercely minotaur creature), set in underground caves. The acting is good. Nice supporting roles by Rutger Hauer and Tony Todd. A ravishingly hot-looking Michelle Van Der Water (damn, that girl needs to take on more roles and show more of herself in movies). The sets are very obvious sets with artificial lighting, but at least the set designers went through a lot of effort to make it all look good. The Minotaur creature is a terrific creation. About the size of three full-grown man, the FX-artists actually took it that far to build a full-size puppet version of the creature. In some parts (mostly when you see it running) CGI is used, but it blends in nicely with the other shots. Decent stuff and the monster gets enough screen time as well. I just couldn't care less if the story was pretty thin or what else there might be to complain about. "Minotaur" has a lot of heart put into it. Gory & bloody killings too, even. And that little touch of typical Greek tragedy at the end was exquisite: Raphaella killing her own brother by smothering him to death (not to mention those subtle incestuous goings-on earlier in the movie). "Minotaur" simply doesn't deserve to be flunked on this site. It's a way too decent effort for that.

Perverse, the movie was perverse with the strange "exotic" nasty clothes they wore, the lesbian kiss? WTF!? In ancient Greece?Incorrect: Wikipedia quote: "at nine-year intervals, seven Athenian boys and seven Athenian girls were to be sent to Crete to be devoured by the Minotaur" The movie states 8 "youngsters" every third year. How come the village has been raided 5 times already, and the movie states: northern territory, foolish plot! Marriage between sister and brother is a ancient Egyptian tradition. Sub Saharan African actors as Minoans? WTF? How stupid can you be? Whats next? Far East Asian Vikings? North American natives as Samurais? Eskimos acting Zulu warriors? Caucasians in Apocalypto 2? Hey Mel lets make all the natives blond and blue eyed, thats the REAL story! The Minotaur is supposed to be a man with a head tail of a bull (sometimes with the hooves/hid legs of one as well). And what is that creature supposed to be a minotaur? A gigantic rat with horns and hooves? Just looks stupid.Stupid: All the running around the maze screaming each others names and the monster actually being able to sneak up to them with all its noisy breathing and running. Sniffing "gas" out of a goat skull, some kind of joke? What kind of helmets do they have? Haha, looks like something they robbed from Sauron in LOTR.Horrible, stupid movie, I believe it's one of the worst I've ever seen. I give it 2/10 because it had quite nice looking actresses.It's not hard to make a good movie out of a myth, how can you rape it so bad? This is not good, nor to learn history nor myth, as someone wrote.

Minotaur is set many 1000's of years ago in an age when the world was ruled by a dark empire from an island palace called Minos, these people worshipped the most powerful of all Gods the Bull. In a horrible act of worship the Queen (Shiva Gholamianzedah) offers herself to the God & is impregnated with a hideous Bull like creature called the Minotaur which she gives birth too, every 3 years 8 youths from the village of Thena are taken to Minos to be sacrificed to the Minotaur & that time has come once again. The ruler of Thena Cyran (Rutger Hauer) has a son named Theo (Tom Hardy) whose girlfriend Ffion (Donata Janietz) was taken 3 years ago, Theo hears that she may still be alive so in an effort to find out he makes sure he is one of the 8 sacrifices who have to face the horrors of the Minotaur & it's labyrinth...This English, German, Luxembourg, French & Spanish co-production was co-produced & directed by Jonathan English & while it isn't going to win any awards Minotaur turned out to be a lot better than I had originally anticipated. The script by Nick Green & Stephen McDool takes itself very seriously & even though it's based on the Greek legend of Theseus & the Minotaur it actually bears little resemblance to it in truth, the film moves along at a nice enough pace, it never bores to the extent where you feel like switching off, the character's are pretty good even if most of them don't do much, the dialogue is alright & the Minotaur itself is a pretty impressive beast. There's some nudity, there's some gore, there's lots of special effects & the story isn't too bad either. Don't get me wrong, Minotaur isn't any sort of masterpiece, far from it in fact but it's a decent watchable & quite fun sci-fi horror film that overall impressed me more than I thought it would. However I did feel a bit sorry for the Queen, I mean she lets herself get impregnated with a deformed bull creature & what thanks does she get? None, they cut it out of her with a knife & let it feed on her blood, now that's gratitude for you.Director English does OK, the MTV style quick cuts & shaky camcorder syndrome are thankfully absent here & you can actually see what's going on at all times which is nice. The film has a decent enough atmosphere to it as it's shot in nice golden candle lit hues & tones while the period setting is well realised. The special effects are surprisingly impressive here, the CGI computer effects are excellent in fact & the Minotaur looks the absolute business even though those looking for a faithful representation of the half man/half Bull Greek myth may be disappointed. The puppet effects are also very good, the two techniques are used well together & compliment each other. There's some gore here but not much, most of the gore consists of the Minotaur impaling people on it's horns although there's a fair amount of blood splatter as well.I was somewhat surprised to see this had a healthy sounding budget of about $7,000,000, I must admit that sounds like a lot of money for what ends up on screen impressive special effects apart. It's certainly well made with good production values but seven big ones? Not that you would know but Minotaur was actually shot in Luxembourg. The acting is OK, genre favourite Tony Todd has put on some weight since his Candyman (1992) days, Rutger Hauer is here for rent money & Ingrid Pitt is unrecognisable under lots of warts & wrinkles playing an ugly old woman while babe Michelle Van Der Water provides the good looks.Minotaur is a decent creature feature with some nice gore & impressive special effects, it won't change your life but it's an entertaining way to pass 90 odd minutes. Certainly better than I expected & better than most creature features such as Python (2000), Crocodile (2000) or Cerberus (2005) to name but three...