User Reviews

Sinbad (Manu Bennett) steals the Chronicles of the King Minos from the camp of the evil sorcerer Al-Jibar (Steven Grives) with the location of the golden head of the Colossus of Rhodes. He also saves the slave Tara (Holly Brisley) and brings her to his ship.

Sinbad sails with Tara and his crew to the Island of Minos and they meet a village of descents of Minos. They learn that the treasure is guarded by the Minotaur in a labyrinth and Sinbad gets rid of the beast. When they are celebrating, Al-Jibar arrives in the village with the flesh eater Seif (Jared Robinson) and his army, and demands the scroll for him. Out of the blue, the villagers turn into beasts and attack the outsiders. Who will survive?

"Sinbad and the Minotaur" is a lame movie with a good story and awful acting and costumes. The non-charismatic Manu Bennett looks like Rambo or a marine with his hair cut and his acting is limited to grimaces. Lily Brown is histrionic in the role of the priestess Arianna. The villains Al-Jibar and Seif are sinister and Holly Brisley is very sexy. Despite the low-budget, the acting and costumes could be better. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Sinbad e o Minotauro" ("Sinbad and the Minotaur")

There used to be A-Movies and B-Movies. This is a Z-Movie. After watching the first half, I decided to bail. Because I needed to brush my teeth and that was much more interesting than any masochistic urge to continue hurting my eyes with this tripe.

In all seriousness, this was made in my home town, and I would dearly love to offer some support to our ailing industry. But to be brutally honest - after the embarrassing travesty of another recent Australian film - "Tomorrow, When the War Began" - I thought things couldn't get worse. Well they have. Much worse in fact. I don't know where to begin in trying to offer a sensible review: perhaps suffice to say try and think of the worst movie you have seen in your life. Well this is a new candidate for that title. I truly can't think of a single positive aspect to this movie. It's about Sinbad???

Maybe...just maybe, your 4 year old might like this on DVD.

So unless you work for the studio and are forced to watch this, please save your time and money and do something more productive with your time.

1/10

I watched Sinbad and the Minotaur with nothing else better to do, but while I was dubious of whether it would work it turned out to be worse than I expected. Production values-wise, it's a cheap-looking film, with costumes reminiscent of bad fancy dress, scenery that is not authentic at all and camera work that looks flat and rushed. I have seen worse effects in my lifetime, but although I do realise it was low-budget Sinbad and the Minotaur doesn't in my view look as though a lot of effort went into it. The minotaur has some menace but is too much of a giant bull rather than half-man/half-bull from mythology. The dialogue is terribly cheesy, but hilariously so at the same time, and while the idea was good the story was dull with no genuine thrills, imagination, fun and suspense and everything screams of being done before in adventure/fantasy films and better. The direction is sloppy, and the acting is pretty atrocious, with Manu Bennett having none of the charisma needed for the role of Sinbad. In fairness though, the characters are not interesting at all and have no life to them, the villain is especially flat. In conclusion, an awful film but if you watch it for novelty value you might get some enjoyment out of it. 1/10 Bethany Cox

If they spent more than $100 making this they were robbed. The script is awful, the acting abysmal and the sets hilarious. My advice, don't waste valuable time watching this tripe. I cant honestly think of anything that was worth while watching. It is supposed to be based on the myth of the Minotaur, but the lead actor is so bad at acting. I have to mention the Kiwi accent of the male star that it's hard to take anything seriously right from the start. I'm surprised that SyFy channel even bothered to air this. Even the props were funny, but most of all was the plot. I've never sat through so much trash in all my life.

The movie is no "Lord of the Rings," of course, but given the constraints of budget and more limited application of SFX, it is fairly acceptable, quite watchable, and better than the majority of recent low-budget productions that one can see on the SyFy channel these days. There is humor and deliberate irony of classic myth, as well as self-conscious parody at times, which, I believe, goes quite well to disperse any attempts to take things all too seriously. The acting is also acceptable - this particular representation of Sinbad, for example, just like Beowulf, is supposed to be a blend between the arrogance, yet zesty adventure-loving nature of an Indiana Jones and the ridiculous ego-mania of a Narcissus - and the lead delivers both reasonably well. Do not expect a great adventure tale; yet, the movie is fair and definitely watchable...

You know what you are getting with this movie, so don't set your expectations up too high.

This is one of those type of movies that were made with all the right intentions, but faltered under horrible CGI effects. If you enjoy fantasy and mythical adventures, then you might find some enjoyment in "Sinbad and the Minotaur", just prepare to ward your eyes away from some gut-wrenching abysmal CGI effects.

Story-wise, then "Sinbad and the Minotaur" is straight forward and very easy to follow. It is a fast paced movie, and that worked well in favor of the movie. And the action sequences were actually quite alright as well.

As for the acting, well, it was adequate but nothing outstanding or memorable. And it was a shame that they didn't have any famous actors or actresses to star in the movie in order to lift up the standards.

There are far better fantasy movies out there, and "Sinbad and the Minotaur" wasn't memorable enough to stand out in the genre.

Apparently, people love to denounce "Sinbad and Minotaur" (2011) because it's clear that the actors learned their lines the same day their scenes were shot and the production was done at lightning speed. On top of this is a we're-not-taking-this-too-seriously air akin to the Indiana Jones sequels. The criticizers can't seem to get past these limitations to see what is, actually, a fun, rollicking Sinbad adventure in the manner of "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" and "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger," only much faster-paced.

Muscleman Manu Bennett would've made a better Sinbad if they had done something with his hair and maybe given him a goatee. As it is, he looks too much like a Jersey Shore hunk. Despite this, he nails the part and conveys the joie de vivre of Sinbad. In fact, one of the highlights of the film is the great joy of living portrayed by all the protagonists.

Another highlight is the great locations, shot in Queensland, Australia. There's a good variety of settings, like forests, rock outcroppings, deserts, the sea, and caves. Speaking of caves, some of the cave sets are pretty unconvincing, sort of like the original Star Trek TV series, but not so bad that it spoils the film. It's just part of the charm.

There's a nice smorgasbord of women as well, including a gorgeous belly dancer near the beginning and fleeing damsel with see-through attire, lol.

The villain (Steven Grives) is also strong with his gruesome cannibal/vampire sidekick.

The film runs 88 minutes.

BOTTOM LINE: If you can look past the fact that the actors essentially learned their lines the same day of shooting, this is a fun, thrilling Sinbad yarn filled with high adventure, swashbuckling, magic and beautiful women. Yeah, it's a throw-away flick, but aren't all Sinbad films, really? Besides, "Sinbad and the Minotaur" is the definition of joie de vivre; it's a good film for when you just want to turn off your brain and have a good time.

If it weren't for the overt negatives noted above I wouldn't hesitate to give it a higher rating.

GRADE: C+ or B-

Compared to the Sinbad movies I watched when I was younger this one is totally boring. Not much of a plot and the acting and action parts were not very good. I think that trying to make more Sinbad movies is alright but they need to use better graphics and get better actors. The creatures were obviously fake and not very entertaining. The bad guy is such an obvious phony. If I could compare it to maybe the Mummy movies or even Pirates of the Caribbean or Indiana Jones. This movie does not even come close to being as good as them. The SFX in this movie cannot compare with some of the other adventure movies out on the market right now. It was a good try, but didn't even come close to the other movies. Slightly entertaining and helped to kill time, nothing else to do but watch it until I was ready to watch the other movie I will be watching later.

or horns coming out of your forehead.

Aladdin's mission is basically that: find the lost treasure of Minos (the Colossus' head), and in the interim, overcome a few perils, or should I say "perils", such as an evil dark mage and his human fighter/horror necro ghoul, an island whose inhabitants turn into would-be 'minotaurians' from some kind of curse, some thugs here and there also intent on stopping him, and of course, the infamous minotaur, a CG-created enormous bull that bellows and stomps its way through a cave called a labyrinth (of course), flaming red eyes and no other grotesque features other than a hideous head and ginormous horns.

But to Aladdin, all these are just "details, details", as he often interjects during the movie. I don't ever recall thinking of Aladdin as a throw-all-caution-to-the wind guy, strutting into all kinds of 'unknown' dangers, and when entering the 'labyrinth', (careful! the minotaur!), "details, details". About half-way through the movie, just sitting there dumbly watching this, I am wondering where this is all going, or what exactly is this supposed to be. For a fairy-tale story, it falls pitifully short. For special effects, it is not that highly budgeted an adventure. For teaching some lessons or morals, nothing either. Appealing to an adult audience - not unless you've got less than half a brain. For children, some parts maybe, but it was much too violent and gory for a young audience (ripping off body parts and horns going right through and breaking off). The story was also poorly scripted and acted out, and I say this, not because it had to be a highly paid or budgeted film, but because it lacked substance and imagination.

How many movies have I seen throughout the years, seemingly uninspiring and old story-based, but made with such dedication and inspiration, you fail to notice they're old? Way back, even, in the days when, as a kid, I was mesmerized by 'Jason and the Argonauts', 'Clash of Titans', 'Sinbad the Sailor' (and there were a host of these with similar themes), many of them not big movies, but most left something, which today, sadly, is lacking in many of such.

No need to say more, I believe. You get the picture.

It is not a monster movie. A classic story where good and evil try to reach the same treasure. They encounter few times but none is very efficient. The bad guy needs to be more bad and wears black or covers face. The good guy is super good and popular and has magical item to cheat. Henchmen are just long enough in sight to die. Monster is there. and arrives predictable. If they just examine and sell the traps with 100y guarantee or the ever-burning torches then they would get rich.

I resented a few aspects of the film. They should have stopped using CGI and build a real life model. And it is like they wrote a movie to show a few certain items and events.

This film is lacking in several places: two of my main gripes are a better script and better actors. Costuming was fine to me, cinematography so-so but the CGI was awful even for today's low budget films.

Where was the Minotaur? It was just a large CGI bull. The end battle with Sinbad and this Bull (Minotaur) was super fast and terrible - not the great battle we would expect from this type of movie.

2/10

This has more in relation to those violent and sadistic, sword and sandal TV productions, than the original Arabian Knight tales. With very little substance and some truly terrible monster effects. A bit of creativity with a couple of action sequences and some nasty human creatures. Hardly much of a recommendation at all.

Don't take this too seriously and you might enjoy it. The action sequences are good, the monster is a bit ropey and the plot straightforward and easy to follow. There's enough glamour for the dads - though a bit more might have been good - and enough plot holes to have you talking for hours over pizza and beer afterwards.

Hero Manu Bennett, a Kiwi actor, has built a career with roles in Spartacus, Shannara and Arrow - so good luck to the bloke - and bad guy Steven Grives you might remember from the Beastmaster series - so loads of fantasy experience to call upon in the movie.

Overall, not bad - give it a go.