A review by Brooks Rich
I said before that one of my favorite film genres is monsters eating people and that some of the best came to us in the '90s. My favorite of the genre is Deep Rising, already covered on this blog. A close second is Tremors and a close third to that is The Relic, directed by Peter Hyams and a totally fun if flawed monster movie.
The Relic stars Penelope Ann Miller and Tom Sizemore, a troubled actor in real life but damn is he good when he can get his shit together. Miller plays Dr. Margo Green, an evolutionary biologist at the Chicago Museum of Natural History. A brutal murder at the museum brings in lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta of homicide, played by Sizemore. Of course there is pressure to solve the murder before a gala premiere at the museum, where the best and brightest of Chicago will attend. I wonder if a giant monster will attack and start wrecking shit? Oh yeah, it totally does.
OK. Let me get this out of the way. Peter Hyams shot this film himself. He often served as his own DP. Hyams does not get credit for being the ambitious director that he can be sometimes. However, this film is dark. By dark I don't mean tone. This is walking into a cave and trying to read a piece of paper with the light from a small candle held ten feet from you. Hyams used only natural lighting, which I admire, but Peter, come on, turn on a light sometimes. There's a few scenes where it's hard to see but I don't take too many points away because it's always clear what the monster is doing.
I love the cast in The Relic. Miller and Sizemore have good chemistry together and are likable as the leads. That's the thing about this film. It builds some character. We understand who the characters of Green and D'Agosta are and we get to like them. We even like their allies, such as Linda Hunt as the museum curator, Clayton Rohner as sergeant Hollingsworth, a friend of D'Agosta's, and possibly the scene stealer, James Whitemore as Dr. Albert Frock, Margo's mentor at the museum. A downside is the two human antagonists, a rival of Margo's and the head of museum security. They're really only there for you to hate them and then cheer when the Kothoga tears through them later.
The monster in this film is awesome and pretty terrifying. This thing is brutal and the kills in The Relic are fantastic and even disturbing at times. It's clear the film is leading up to this big premiere and we're expecting some chaos but it pays off with some wonderful gore and plenty of kills. The monster of the film, the Kothoga, earns more respect in the annals of cinema monster history. When it's a practical effect, it looks like something from your darkest nightmare. When it's CGI it looks like shit. Yeah, the CGI in this is not great.
The Relic is a film you might remember seeing the trailer for. This film was actually huge when it came out in 1997 but sadly has been relegated to the back burner of cinema history. That's a shame. This is not high cinema. This is a popcorn film but it's a fun popcorn film. Sometimes we just want a film where people try to survive an attack from a giant monster. There's nothing wrong with that.
I said before that one of my favorite film genres is monsters eating people and that some of the best came to us in the '90s. My favorite of the genre is Deep Rising, already covered on this blog. A close second is Tremors and a close third to that is The Relic, directed by Peter Hyams and a totally fun if flawed monster movie.
The Relic stars Penelope Ann Miller and Tom Sizemore, a troubled actor in real life but damn is he good when he can get his shit together. Miller plays Dr. Margo Green, an evolutionary biologist at the Chicago Museum of Natural History. A brutal murder at the museum brings in lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta of homicide, played by Sizemore. Of course there is pressure to solve the murder before a gala premiere at the museum, where the best and brightest of Chicago will attend. I wonder if a giant monster will attack and start wrecking shit? Oh yeah, it totally does.
OK. Let me get this out of the way. Peter Hyams shot this film himself. He often served as his own DP. Hyams does not get credit for being the ambitious director that he can be sometimes. However, this film is dark. By dark I don't mean tone. This is walking into a cave and trying to read a piece of paper with the light from a small candle held ten feet from you. Hyams used only natural lighting, which I admire, but Peter, come on, turn on a light sometimes. There's a few scenes where it's hard to see but I don't take too many points away because it's always clear what the monster is doing.
I love the cast in The Relic. Miller and Sizemore have good chemistry together and are likable as the leads. That's the thing about this film. It builds some character. We understand who the characters of Green and D'Agosta are and we get to like them. We even like their allies, such as Linda Hunt as the museum curator, Clayton Rohner as sergeant Hollingsworth, a friend of D'Agosta's, and possibly the scene stealer, James Whitemore as Dr. Albert Frock, Margo's mentor at the museum. A downside is the two human antagonists, a rival of Margo's and the head of museum security. They're really only there for you to hate them and then cheer when the Kothoga tears through them later.
The monster in this film is awesome and pretty terrifying. This thing is brutal and the kills in The Relic are fantastic and even disturbing at times. It's clear the film is leading up to this big premiere and we're expecting some chaos but it pays off with some wonderful gore and plenty of kills. The monster of the film, the Kothoga, earns more respect in the annals of cinema monster history. When it's a practical effect, it looks like something from your darkest nightmare. When it's CGI it looks like shit. Yeah, the CGI in this is not great.
The Relic is a film you might remember seeing the trailer for. This film was actually huge when it came out in 1997 but sadly has been relegated to the back burner of cinema history. That's a shame. This is not high cinema. This is a popcorn film but it's a fun popcorn film. Sometimes we just want a film where people try to survive an attack from a giant monster. There's nothing wrong with that.
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