I have returned!
...
I hope some of you still remember me. I'm not going to be here very often- mostly only on extended breaks like Christmas, Summer, March break, etc. Anyway, today I come to you with a new movie review: the Sci-Fi Channel's
Manticore.
For those not in the know of what a manticore is, its a mythical creature from either India, Persia, or Greece that has the body of a tiger or lion, the head of a man, bat-like wings, and a scorpion's tail. At least, that's what a manticore SHOULD look like. The one in this film looks like a bald, pug-faced lion with wings and a somewhat-scorpion-looking tail. I should also add that it can magically telport and barf acid. It also looks like something right out of an Xbox game.
The story goes like this: a terrorist leader down in Iraq has brought a stone manticore to life and sends it after a group of US marines. What a manticore is doing in Iraq, I have no idea. So anyways, these soldiers of the US of A have a giant Bionicle figure with skin made of pink putty stretched over its plastic bones (yes, that is what I'd compare it to) after them, but for the most part, they don't seem too concerned about this nigh-industructable living superweapon shooting quills and acid puke at them. I'll briefly mention the two reporters accompanying the soldiers, but only briefly, because they're annoying and die fairly early on.
Manticores, as you can probably tell by now, are pretty neat monsters. As far as I'm concerned, any movie about a manticore on a killer rampage has potential... Unless its a Sci-Fi Channel original. But the first rule of making a good monster movie is to acknowledge the creature's existence a few times, even when its not around to remind everyone it exists. The characters in this movie hardly, if ever, do that. This is like a DTV sequel to
Black Hawk Down or similar war movie with a mythical beast thrown in at the last minute just for the fun of it. Given the creature's absence and poorly-executed on-screen presence, it wouldn't surprise me if this was actually meant to be
Black Hawk Down 2 until a studio exec said "Screw it, let's throw in a monster".
There are a couple of redeeming factors, though; there is one kind of cool scene involving a helicopter, and the effects occasionally look OK. But for the most part, this is just another creature feature that doesn't feature its creature quite enough.
SCORE
1/2 out of five
