I picked this out as one of about 1,000 VHS close-outs for 50 cents each because the box made the movie sound interesting. This is the "spoiler" spelled out on the packaging for this flick: A brutal rapist despoils a gymnast against the backdrop of a scenic Greek island, so her gym-sisters revive a harrowing ritual to exact swift revenge.
Guess what? Here's what the movie delivers: No gymnasts! No Greek Island! No rape! No revenge! Sure, there's a few chunky overage female extras dressed in leotards who tumble for a several minutes during the first fifth of the show, but the girls I was in middle school with did better, not to mention the members of the NCAA II mid-tier team I followed for a few seasons. The quality of the athletes here can be grasped if you picture the first day of a community service gymnastic rehab program for Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears (only with women five years older who know how to eat). Unfortunately, this movie requires the viewer to believe the strapping assault victim is the defending gold medalist from the 1984 Olympics!
The geography of the film is quite confusing, which is easy to understand when one finds out that the movie crew thought Croatia was a Greek island! Sure, not every flick can film on location, but if you are telling me girls are running through the actual maze of the Minotaur--and if you are filming in a cheap labor country--at least hire a carpenter, painter, and a plasterer or two and build something that RESEMBLES a maze, rather than trying to pass off the nearest Croatian rubble pile as one!
Maybe not every rape scene has to be as graphic as Julie Christie's in Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, but don't tackle a girl, cut to the next scene, relate no further details about the attempted assault during the movie, and then hype a "brutal rape" on the box.
Finally, the harrowing ritual of revenge--the deciding factor in my watching this flick in the first place--turned out to be a lot tamer than several of the high school girls athletic team hazing rites making news on American TV the past three years--PLUS THE GIRLS DO IT TO THE INNOCENT TEACHER, not the guilty one! At one point in this ludicrous farce, three of the gymnasts emerge gaily laughing from the supposedly cold ocean waters after swimming a mile in open seas on a whim. This is the film's unintentional highlight for accuracy in its subject matter; though most of the gymnasts I've known would expire from hypothermia in half that distance, the ladies passing for Olympian balance beam strollers in this movie certainly look like they'd be more at home swimming the English Channel.
Guess what? Here's what the movie delivers: No gymnasts! No Greek Island! No rape! No revenge! Sure, there's a few chunky overage female extras dressed in leotards who tumble for a several minutes during the first fifth of the show, but the girls I was in middle school with did better, not to mention the members of the NCAA II mid-tier team I followed for a few seasons. The quality of the athletes here can be grasped if you picture the first day of a community service gymnastic rehab program for Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears (only with women five years older who know how to eat). Unfortunately, this movie requires the viewer to believe the strapping assault victim is the defending gold medalist from the 1984 Olympics!
The geography of the film is quite confusing, which is easy to understand when one finds out that the movie crew thought Croatia was a Greek island! Sure, not every flick can film on location, but if you are telling me girls are running through the actual maze of the Minotaur--and if you are filming in a cheap labor country--at least hire a carpenter, painter, and a plasterer or two and build something that RESEMBLES a maze, rather than trying to pass off the nearest Croatian rubble pile as one!
Maybe not every rape scene has to be as graphic as Julie Christie's in Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, but don't tackle a girl, cut to the next scene, relate no further details about the attempted assault during the movie, and then hype a "brutal rape" on the box.
Finally, the harrowing ritual of revenge--the deciding factor in my watching this flick in the first place--turned out to be a lot tamer than several of the high school girls athletic team hazing rites making news on American TV the past three years--PLUS THE GIRLS DO IT TO THE INNOCENT TEACHER, not the guilty one! At one point in this ludicrous farce, three of the gymnasts emerge gaily laughing from the supposedly cold ocean waters after swimming a mile in open seas on a whim. This is the film's unintentional highlight for accuracy in its subject matter; though most of the gymnasts I've known would expire from hypothermia in half that distance, the ladies passing for Olympian balance beam strollers in this movie certainly look like they'd be more at home swimming the English Channel.