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(More customer reviews)While the SciFi channel shovels out stinkers by the dozen, from Species 3 (and Species 2 clearly earned a grade of Z-, so why they'd make another one....) to that movie with the cloned dragon with Dean Cain, Megasnake with the winner of the superhero competition, Basilisk and let's not forget those amazingly awful and absurd Sabretooth slasher type movies (I liked how the fetus had sabreteeth - cats of course don't grow teeth until after they're born, just like humans) which somehow managed to cast John Rhys Davies and Venessa Angel (hmmm, lots of mythological creatures from the commodore 64 game Archon when you think about it - perhaps we can expect a banshee, golem or shapeshifter movie to come - hopefully not a unicorn movie) to every manner of hokey disaster flick, this one stands out as an exception, despite the fact that its plot SOUNDS like a clone of all the others, which themselves contain nothing new or creative and are therefore pointless. I assure you, this is much, much better, and much more poignant. It's not mindless violence, it's mindFUL violence!
I was so impressed that I was actually waiting all through 2005 and 2006, checking video stores every week, to try to buy it on DVD and finally gave up and recorded it and edited out the commercials for my own collection when I saw it was on one last time, and I guess I should have just waited a little bit longer since now on inspiration I looked it up and sure enough it was released on DVD in 2007. It has several familiar faces, most notably the man who played Chekotay from Star Trek Voyager (and longer back, a main character from the movie Night of the Comet). It amazingly performs a striking political commentary on the whole 'weapons of mass destruction' fiasco in Iraq, as a small group of religious eccentrics in Iraq resurrect a creature of legend to rekindle THEIR national spirit behind a real, living, breathing weapon of mass destruction, in the face of a military invasion of dubious justification. Of course, the Manticore is just SO powerful and nearly uncontrollable (a standard creation turning on its master sort of story you might say), and practically immortal, so it of course gets a bit out of hand (I thought the manticore was kind of cute though, especially that long spiky tail - and they got the legend just right on the physical characteristics of the Manticore, by the way). So how do you stop the invincible manticore? In the final confrontation, they do their best to scrap together legend and modern technology, so watch the movie and see what they come up with. You won't be disappointed with the resolution. Well, unless you were rooting for the manticore to destroy western civilization or become someone's pet, you won't be disappointed.
As another reviewer pointed out, if they couldn't make the manticore a little less flagrantly computer animated, they should have shown him a bit less. His first appearance was such a brief glimpse, you don't get a good look at him, and that was pretty good - too bad they didn't continue like that all the way through, that would have even better than 'a claw here, a talon there'. Oh well, so it's not perfect. But as a low budget movie goes, I'm sure it was a million dollars well spent. Hollywood can shovel out garbage at 5 times the rate of the Sci-Fi channel and 500 times the price, so this is a testament to how good even a small investment can be if it's only done right. And that manticore was totally badazzzz.
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In war-torn Iraq, rugged Army soldiers learn that the battles they face every day have only been a warm-up to the unspeakable terror awaiting them. Dispatched to find a missing news crew, the squad finds itself facing an ancient, evil, a mythical clawed-and-winged beast known as the Manticore, now unleashed by villainous opponents to keep the land under their control. Starring Robert Beltran (Star Trek: Voyager), Jeff Fahey (Grindhouse), Chase Masterson (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), and Heather Donahue (The Blair Witch Project), this gritty, powerhouse collision of brutal combat and monster-packed action will thrill you with every explosive minute!
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