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Dark Relic
1099 A.D.: A battle-weary knight leads his men home from the Holy Land after years of fighting. But the supposedly holy relic he’s carrying bears a terrible curse…
Release : | 2010 |
Rating : | 3.5 |
Studio : | Syfy, |
Crew : | Production Design, Camera Operator, |
Cast : | James Frain Clemency Burton-Hill Tom Basden Alyy Khan Marija Karan |
Genre : | Fantasy Horror Science Fiction |
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Reviews
Good movie but grossly overrated
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
The first must-see film of the year.
The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;
Not a total waste of time as so many ScyFi channel films. The film's biggest downfalls are the poor CGI (something one might expect the ScyFi channel to be particularly good at given the genre, but actually are very bad at) and so-so directing and scripting.It always amazes me that films which portray the demonic as such powerful and real forces give such short shrift to the powers of Good. It strikes me as rather lame that film makers have the demon win when confronted with a person of true faith standing on their faith against such. If the demon exists, so too must God and his angels. And yet, this film has devote monks becoming possessed flesh-eaters in the blink of an eye, a knight of the Crusade "poisoned" by a splinter from a piece of the "true cross" and converted into a demonic monster with flailing tentacles, cursed nails stronger than a holy relic (a piece of the cross) and the blood of Christ, and a demon immune to the Bible and a crucifix but at the same time subject to the power of an Islamic symbol. One of the characters is an indentured laborer who confesses to being a non-believer to a knight of the Crusade. Subsequently, she revises her position to one of belief. Other critics spurn her conversion, but I have to ask: given an out-right blatant proof of the existence of Evil in the form of a demon, I think that most atheists or agnostics would find faith in a deity of some form rather quickly. Kind of like the old adage: their are no atheists in foxholes ...The acting is okay, and Fain plays the lead well. Alyy Khan does a pretty decent job in his role as supporting actor. I did find the reasoned approach to the coexistence of their different faiths to be a pleasant change. I am just not sure of how realistic it was for the time. It isn't unreasonable that a crusader returning to England after years of battle might be weary of the acrimony back and forth and to have a more wizened approach, but Khan's character has no basis for such given his position and background in such a strongly indoctrinated faith.Given the portrayed invulnerability of the demon to normal weapons, it was a decent plot ploy that the blood of Christ would serve as a weapon enhancer to make normal weapons effective against the demon. However, the piece of the cross did not ooze such all the time so how did they gather enough to coat the weapons? Likewise, all this time the demon has been following the piece of the cross, even transporting it back to the good guys when they try to bury it and leave it behind, and yet when it is shoved in the face of the demon, the demon is blown to bits. And if the relic is so powerful against the demon, why is it that the knight can't remove the cursed nails from it? The nails are more powerful than the demon? Very weak.
I actually liked the story of that movie. The movie had some points of thrill, but like the other reviews already said: The movie was destroyed by lousy and cheap so-called "Special-Effects" that sometimes had the quality of a mid-nineties-computer-game. The acting of James Frain, whom I first saw in "The Tudors" and of Alyy Khan was good (an probably kind of saved the movie from disaster). I almost felt sorry for them spoiling their names for this movie. The rest of the acting was average. I do not regret watching this movie (maybe because I like these middle-age crusade-type of movie). I would not watch it again and I would not really recommend it to any friends. This movie really could have been better with some up-to-date special-effects and if it would have been put into scene a little bit better.
Well, as this being a SyFy movie, should basically be enough said right there.As for the story, well the plot was alright and it was a great idea, but the movie suffered horribly from it being badly put to the screen. And the movie really suffered from the crappy effects and CGIs.There were points where I wanted to claw my eyes out because of the effects, but somehow the story managed to keep me interested enough to actually watch this movie.As for the acting. Well mostly they were good enough, with a couple of exceptions. Nothing major or academy-winning performances here.I do not recommend you sit down to watch this movie, unless you got an unhealthy interest in the age of crusaders and in cheesy supernatural movies, and with crappy CGI effects at that! But hey, if that is your combo, then go right for it. Personally, I could find much better and more constructive ways to spend my time.
Dark Relic is a film about a group of crusaders who retrieve a piece of the crucifix that Jesus Christ himself was nailed upon. As soon as they take it awful things begin to happen to them: Their food is tainted, they shipwreck, dead birds fall on them, locusts swarm them, wolves kill their horses, possessed monks attack them and not to mention the fire-breathing demon that stalks them. That said this film was pretty good. The effects were above average for low-budget and the acting was great. I found myself giving the movie positive feedback by saying things such as "Nice!" or "Awesome!" throughout. There are many things to like about this movie which make it a good film to watch on a Saturday night.