The Relic (1997)

One of those films I tend to revisit every ten years or so, mainly because my memory of it is slightly better than the reality, The Relic is a creature feature that is as enjoyable as it is silly. It’s a mess, both visually and in terms of the stupid plotting, but it’s an enjoyable mess.

Set in the Field Museum Of Natural History, in Chicago, this is your standard template. People start dying, police investigate the deaths, evidence eventually leads to some creature being to blame, the finale relies on a plucky cop and plucky scientist saving the day. Oh, but some VIPs need the museum to stay “safe” and usable for a bit charity gala do that is set to go ahead - giving the film an obvious “the beaches are open” riff - and there is a bit more work to be done before the scientist figures out EXACTLY what the creature is before it can be destroyed.

Based on a popular novel, co-written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (sadly, no, I haven’t read it), The Relic may suffer from a number of failings, but a dearth of writers isn’t one of them. Four other people worked to adapt the source material into a screenplay, which is pretty astonishing when you think of how laughable and formulaic it is in places. I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone, but there are one or two “revelations” that prove to be completely unsurprising, and the ultimate solution to the big beastie problem is something that would have worked on almost every other creature on the planet.

Director Peter Hyams doesn’t distract from the simple pleasures of the main story structure, although the scene in which a SWAT team tries to enter the building remains a glorious highlight, but he is slightly hampered by the fact that he has to blend practical effects and  mid-‘90s CGI. Everything holds up a bit better than expected, but that’s down to the low lighting levels used in many scenes and plenty of canny editing keeping things only partially-seen until the outrageous third act.

Stuck in the midst of the madness are Penelope Ann Miller (plucky scientist) and Tom Sizemore (plucky cop), who both try their best with the cheesy dialogue. Sizemore fares a bit better, his natural air of pessimism and slight grumpiness offset by the determination and strength of his character (helped by a fun little conversational thread about him losing custody of his dog in divorce proceedings). Miller gets more exposition, and she is easy to root for when she is uncomfortably backed into a dangerous space as “the relic” looks set to defeat everyone around it. Linda Hunt and James Whitmore are enjoyable in supporting roles, as are one or two others, but things would have been helped enormously if we had been given a much larger ensemble cast of great character actors to watch being placed in peril.

If you remember enjoying The Relic many years ago then you will still enjoy The Relic now. Unlike the mutation at the heart of it, it is pleasingly constant and unevolved. Neither the best film of this kind, nor the worst, it’s still a great choice for whenever you are having a lazy evening in and after some undemanding entertainment. The 110-minute runtime goes by quickly enough, the setting is used well, the John Debney score is another plus point, and it’s just a shame that Hyams and co. didn’t decide to throw some more blood and guts around. 

6/10

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Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

Will Ferrell may not be the kind of comic actor you can imagine moving smoothly into more dramatic roles, but he does a very good job playing Harold Crick in this movie, a gentle comedy that mixes in some wonderful ideas and a few nice twists and turns.

Harold Crick works for the IRS and lives his life in numbers. He always brushes his teeth a set number of times, he can always answer any mathematical problems thrown at him by colleagues and he stays on quite a predictable, some might say boring, schedule. This all changes completely when Harold starts to hear a voice narrating his every move. Harold seeks help from Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), who endeavours to help him find out what kind of story he is being made a part of and how it might end. Meanwhile, Harold also falls for a young woman (Maggie Gyllenhaal) that he's been tasked with auditing and starts to really enjoy his life for the first time ever. This doesn't register with writer Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson), who is busy trying to get over her writer's block with the help of an optimistic assistant, Penny Escher (Queen Latifah). Karen doesn't need optimism. She often gets inspiration from sickness, from pain. From death.

Director Marc Forster uses a number of great little tricks to make the most of Zach Helm's smart and gently amusing script. Measurements and numbers appear all over the place in the first section of the movie, allowing viewers to get caught up in the details that govern the life of Harold Crick, the narration provides comedy and also tension and there are many enjoyable callbacks to little details throughout the film.

As already mentioned, Ferrell does well in the lead role, but he has the benefit of a superb supporting cast around him. That's not to sell him short though. His everyman turn here may be the best that he's ever done, in my view, and he makes for a likeable and sympathetic lead. Gyllenhaal is a lot of fun in her role, a woman who wants to choose just where her tax dollars go, and Hoffman is even more enjoyable as he gets to grips with Harold's problem and tries to tick off a variety of literary possibilities. Thompson and Latifah are, for the most part, separate from the central story strand, but they're important characters, of course, and both do very well in their roles.

Overall, Stranger Than Fiction manages to please a lot of different people; those looking for something a bit different from the norm, those looking for something clever, those looking for something with warm humour to it, those looking for something with a bit of romance and those looking for a film that will remind them, funnily enough, of the power of a good book.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Than-Fiction-Blu-ray-Region/dp/B000NDETHE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1359497646&sr=8-3