La relique

The title misled me when I first heard of this and saw it back in '97. To me, a relic is some old artifact, and I figured this had something to do with a curse, such as bringing something dead back to life. In, uh, reality, this is about re-arranging existing life, remolding it through wicked biological mutation inside a very basic 'monster-on-the-loose' plot. A very basic drawback for me has to do with visuals, but not the FX, as one might expect. Hyams, the director, also functioned as director of photography (as is usual for him) and I believe he might have been aiming for some extra spookiness in all the scenes taking place in the dark (or, over half the film). But he over extended himself here - the scenes are just too dark, or else the transfers of this film to video and DVD failed to follow someone's instructions. Instead of jumping at the scares, a viewer may instead find himself straining to figure out what's going on. Some of the basic plot turns are clumsy: early on, we are shown the results of a massacre on board a ship, yet the ship docked without problems (?). So, the massacre happened right after it docked (?). No one at the port noticed anything going on...?

However, the cast is good: Sizemore has the wiseguy veteran cop role down pat; Miller is sexy in that coltish brainy redhead way; Hunt is always interesting; and Whitmore never gave a bad performance in his 50+ year career. The main innovation in this creature feature is that the main action takes place in a huge museum (in Chicago). There's also more mention of the 'hypothalamus' - a section of the brain - than in most movies. Otherwise, it follows the old standard formula of political expediency versus common sense law enforcement. Everyone thinks the killer is, of course, the human serial-style variety; the cop feels something ain't right; the politicians have their way for a gala event. This is where things take off, with the monster stalking the elites in the darkened museum. To the film's credit, once the tough guys (a SWAT team) show up, things don't fall neatly into place - the monster makes short work of some of these guys. Early use of digital FX was somewhat startling back then; when the thing grabs a hapless cop, there's no need for a cutaway to a different angle, as in the pre-digital days. Yuk.

On it's own the movie is pretty good... I liked it so much it made me want to read the book - which was exponentially better! The movie changed the location from New York to Chicago and dumped most the the main characters and central storyline and added some that don't have anything to do with the storyline (like D'Agosta's supersticious nature)... they really dumbed it down. There is a fantastic character, Agent Aloysius Pendergast who was completely omitted from the film - what a shame... If you liked the movie then read the series by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child: Relic, Reliquary, Thunderhead, Cabinet of Curiosities, Still Life with Crows, Brimstone and Dance with Death. -Enjoy!!

Not bad, not great. I loved the book, much more interesting and set in Manhattan's museum of natural history ( my favorite). I've watched the movie numerous times and found it enjoyable but, it just lacks the intrigue and detail that made the book so exciting.

When a shipment of artefacts returns to America from South America the police find decapitated bodies on board the ship. When a similar murder occurs in the Chicago museum Lt D'Agosta suspects a psychotic killer and shuts down the museum. With political pressures to keep the museum open for an `opening gala' for Chicago's rich and famous, D'Agosta is forced to give way but sets the place up with a police presence to deal with any trouble. Meanwhile scientist Margo Green suspects that an empty crate of mysterious leaves may have been more than just that and examines the potential that a virus on the leaves caused some sort of creature to evolve. When the same `evolution' attacks during the gala setting off the security alarms and locking down the museum it becomes a fight for survival and escape.

When this came out in the cinema I felt that that was not the best place to see a film like this and decided to wait for video or TV. I finally saw it on TV last night and feel that my gut feeling was right – the small screen is the best place to see this film. At a cinema you may have higher expectations than you would if you watched it in the comfort of your own home on a lazy Saturday night and that might have hurt this film because honestly it's not that good a film. However as a video you perhaps have a lower expectation and then this film is a nice little surprise.

It is without it's own style or ideas but it is an effective monster movie which, in a nutshell, is really what it is. The film follows the traditional formula of all these types of things – monster loose, location sealed or remote, characters separated and picked off in the order you expect until the hero gets the better of it. In that sense this is without any new ideas but and doesn't shine on the plot front but it is an effective little movie. Not particularly scary but more gore than I expected and the film manages to keep the beast frightening by keeping it in the shadows for the majority – even after we've seen it, it is still shot in darkness. In fact the way the film is moved into darkness adds to the tension and makes it more exciting. Of course it isn't fantastic but it does do what you expect a monster movie to do, which is my point. It's main weakness is that it plays it very straight (although the mood made by the darkness helps this) many monster movies have successfully gone more tongue in cheek and done well (Deep Rising from the same period comes to mind. However, having gone the straight road the film does stick to it well despite a very unlikely explanation for the beast.

The cast are par for the course with this type of film – no big stars but support cast given bigger roles. Sizemore is on good form and is at home in the lead of this type of film, I doubt he could carry a blockbuster but he is good. Miller has done better films and she is OK, sadly she is lumbered with all the science stuff and isn't as impacting until near the end. To contrast the two characters there was a 20 minute spell in the middle where both Sizemore and Miller are absent from the action (in different areas) – I noticed Sizemore's absent but it wasn't until Miller came back that I noticed she was gone. The rest of the cast are the usual monster food and you can almost predict who will live and die without 30 seconds of them being introduced – selfish arrogant scientist? How long do you think he'll last!?

Despite this and other clichés the film is good enough to watch as long as you know what you are getting – it is certainly better than a lot of the creature feature movies you can get at your video store and the mood produced by the director in all that darkness helps it along nicely. Not great but better than average for the genre.

A massive, mutated, hybrid monster with a taste for human brains is on the rampage in Chicago's Museum of Natural History, and with the guests at a fancy gala evening trapped inside the building, there's no shortage of juicy grey matter for the creature to feast upon. Tough cop Lt. Vincent D'Agosta (Tom Sizemore) and beautiful evolutionary biologist Dr. Margo Green (Penelope Ann Miller) risk their thalami and hypothalami to do battle with the beast.

The Relic is a formulaic monster-on-the-loose movie full of stereotypical characters, predictable plot developments, and scientific gobbledygook (the exposition might have made sense in the novel, but it is rather sketchy here), but despite the over familiarity of the material, the film still has enough going for it to make it a blast for avid creature feature fans. Peter Hyams handles the direction in his usual technically proficient manner, making good use of his creepy setting (some reviewers complain that the film is poorly lit, but I had no problem with that), delivering plenty of atmosphere, tension, excitement, and well staged scares along the way. Top notch effects also add immensely to the overall enjoyment factor: designed by Stan Winston, the creature is an impressive creation brought to life with practical models and limited use of CGI (which still holds up pretty well), and, once the film kicks into top gear, the gore is graphic and frequent, not a lot of time going by without someone having their head ripped from their body. It might not be all that sophisticated, but it sure is fun.