The Relic

Yes, we've seen it all before. But The Relic proves that the hoariest cliches, when stirred together with enough money, shaken vigorously and artfully lighted, can still make the adrenaline surge.

All of this is actually a lot of fun, if you like special effects and gore.

But Peter Hyams, who's both director and director of photography, forces us to constantly strain to see what isn't there, until ultimately the screen explodes in welcome light, a cathartic finale in broad visceral terms even if the drama hasn't inspired much emotion.

There's nothing much new going on here (we feel compelled to point out the resemblance to one of the worst-ever episodes of The X-Files, "Teso Los Bichos"), but it's all slickly done, with the requisite big jumps, false leads, weird science and scary trips down dark corridors.

Sizemore ("Heat") and Miller, though saddled with a lot of scientific DNA jargon, are really the only lively people in this dense, gruesome film that stubbornly refuses to break out of its contrived atmosphere.

Much like the DNA-scrambled beast to which the title alludes, this film is a chimerical chop-shop product, consisting mostly of spare parts pulled from Alien, Jurassic Park, and even The Ghost and the Darkness.

As written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, The Relic deserved to be taken off the shelf; as adapted by a quartet of screenwriters and directed by Peter Hyams, it should have been left on one.

More BITE than your average Horror Movie. In the recent wave of dull and boring horror movies which have come out recently this was a delight to watch. You have great direction and a story that has so much bundled up inside it should keep everybody happy. When this came out originally I didn't like it much; though twenty years later, I loved it. There are some nice effects courtesy of Stan Winston. I recommend everybody should give this a try.

Sadly the characters are barely believable as humans, but the performances are memorable because the characters are flawed. I found the story excellent and the casting too. The effects are also excellent, maybe a little dated in the finale but it won’t spoil your fun. The monster is very awesome cool but it’s a shame it’s not in more of the movie. You don’t see the monster until the last 30 minutes. The film is kinda Lovecraftian and kinda like Alien (1979). I didn’t like the cinematography or the editing. It was overcut to the point of nausea and so darn dark you couldn’t tell what was going on. They really hammered the superstition thing right into the skull at every possible moment. For all the flaws, like the water being too shallow to hide the monster, it is a very engaging film with a clever story and a setting I hadn’t really seen before in a horror film. Ultimately there’s a big monster that is really cool and eats people’s heads, that makes it worth watching.

The acting was fine, the practicals effects were very good, the CGI wasn't dreadful and the last hour was a lot of fun. As far as silly creature features go, The Relic is pretty good. If you like monster movies, you will undoubtedly appreciate this one.

The great cast, high budget and talented production crew inexplicably fail to deliver above the b movie quality of what's delivered here. I really enjoyed the screenplay, but the editing, direction, cinematography and visual effects all fail to deliver anything neat the quality of its peers. To think starship troopers came out the same year is mind blowing! Peter hyams seemed to struggle to deliver the goods here. The main cast are all superb so it feels like a wasted opportunity. If you're a genre fan its definitely worth checking out though!

Mostly generic verging on pretty bad. The monster scenes are dark and choppily edited. The backstory is neither out-there crazy nor conceptually interesting enough to pique any demented B-movie fun.