Plot
The priceless breastplate of Attila the
Hun is stolen by a criminal gang in a raid on a museum in Bucharest and the
curator is killed. According to legend, the breastplate reveals the location
of the Sword of Mars which made Attila invincible and would do the same to
any such man who would wield it. Unfortunately for them, the gang needed the
curator to decipher the breastplate. So they head to New York to go to their
next best solution - his former assistant, Dr Samantha Gaines. Her partner
is kidnapped by the gang and she is forced to travel to Romania to help the
gang. Little do they all realise that guarding the Sword of Mars is
Cerberus, a monstrous three-headed dog!
Review
Another monster flick from the Sci-Fi Channel and another
complete waste of time, effort and a decent mythical monster in Cerberus.
Just like their other cookie-cutter genre efforts, you can plan out exactly
where this is heading from the get go. Let's check off the list: Mainly
Eastern European cast because the film was shot somewhere in Eastern Europe
on the cheap - check. One or two recognisable American actors (here it is
the lovely Emmanuelle Vaugier) - check. Silly and unnecessary human villains
(because a monster isn't enough to keep interest in the Sci-Fi Channel's
monster movies anymore it seems) - check. Plenty of human fodder from both
the good guys and the bad guys (mainly bad guys though) - check. CGI monster
that only appears a few times - check. Extremely misleading plot synopsis
and DVD cover - CHECK! Yawn.
As with all of these dreary Sci-Fi Channel films, the monster
comes second nature for some unknown reason. Surely if you're marketing
something then you have to deliver? Can't we start taking studios to court
if they fail to deliver what they promise? False advertising? The film
sidelines us with a really weak plot about some North Korean criminal gang
wanting the sword so that they can launch nuclear missiles against the US.
Plenty of tough-looking guys walk around in suits and shades brandishing
firearms. Enough of the Reservoir Dogs posing, can we get the damned
dog killing people? Is it too much to ask? These plots are just shallow
ploys to do anything in the film other than show us the monster which
obviously costs money to appear, hence the cameo role. It is clearly in the
contracts of the Sci-Fi Channel writers that they must include human
villains in these films. So roll out the clichés: mad
scientists, mercenaries, bent cops, greedy entrepreneurs and so on. It's the
turn of the mercenary here. Plenty of double-crossing with bad guys screwing
over bad guys, bad guys screwing over good guys and local villagers getting
screwed by everyone when a massive dog follows the good and bad guys into
the village!
I hate dogs in real life. In fact I'm not really an animal
person period. But there's something about dogs I've never liked. However
this overgrown puppy with three heads isn't going to give me nightmares
anytime soon. It looks terrible so there's no wonder it was kept off screen
as long as it was. But it's not only the CGI that's terrible, it's the
interactions of the human cast. Usually there's a reasonable degree of
interaction with the cast and the actors usually do a decent, if not
perfect, job of making you think there's something there on screen even
though you know there isn't. However the actors in this film don't even make
the effort to do that. Given that the dog isn't on screen a lot, you would
have thought they'd at least try to go all out for it's brief moment of
glory. Hell, the mercenary kills more people than the dog in this film. So
don't expect loads of gory moments of people getting torn apart by three
frenzied dog heads!
Verdict
I keep watching these Sci-Fi Channel films in the hope
that one of them will break the mould and actually deliver the goods instead
of the same old retread. Cerberus blows big time and that's all I've
got to say on it. On the plus side it seems they're running out of monsters
to use. I've lost track of the amount of killer snake, killer shark, killer
crocodile and killer bat films that have been made recently. What's on the
list next? Killer dodos? Killer hamsters? Now that would be an idea - just
as long as there's no mad scientists hogging the limelight!
