“Relic” (1995) is the book that launched the careers of authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and even after two decades’ worth of great mystery thrillers it’s still one of their best. “The Relic” (1997) is very much one of those movies that’s not as good as the book.
But it’s not without value. It’s one of the first movies I saw in the theater when I started seriously getting into cinema, and even though I hadn’t rewatched it in 23 years, a lot of the imagery was stored in my mind.
Museum of horrors
Peter Hyams (“2010”), directing a screenplay by four writers, delivers an extremely intense final act starting with a glitzy fundraising gala at the Chicago Museum of Natural History (changed from the book’s New York museum). It’s like if a single predatory dinosaur escaped from Jurassic Park and ended up here.
The parallels to “Jurassic Park” perhaps get too uncomfortably close once the security system locks people in the building with the creature.
Tom Sizemore anchors the action as Lt. D’Agosta, and he has good chemistry with Penelope Ann Miller as Margo Green, an evolutionary biologist. I picture both of those actors even today when reading a Preston & Child novel.
(The famous Agent Pendergast is in the novel, but not in the movie. He’s not missed in the movie, perhaps because it’s so rapidly paced that there’s no time to miss him. But he’s certainly not needed in the screenplay version of the story.)
The building is a great character, too. I love the vibe that’s set by the superstition exhibit and everything about the old structure. The scientists work in the basement, but there’s also a sub-basement and loads of tunnels beneath the building.
Great setting for scares
Hyams, who does his own camera work, shows this off through buildup such as kids getting lost after closing time and police detectives investigating the sewer-like tunnels. When they find a homeless man who is initially thought to be the killer, I believed that this structure is vast enough that a homeless person could set up a hovel down there.
Even the scientists’ workspaces are dimly lit, and while I do enjoy the vibe, “The Relic” gets so dark toward the end that I struggle to make out what’s happening sometimes. And the buildup at the beginning is almost too fast; there’s a sense that Hyams is rushing through this.
Maybe he doesn’t want us to think about the story too closely. Preston & Child’s “Relic” is not silly; it’s very creepy and cool when the mystery’s answers are revealed in the epilogue. In the film version, the answer to the monster’s origin is peppered in with the action, and it’s not as surprising or creepy.
Memorable images
I can’t say “The Relic” is all that scary by today’s standards, but it’s thrilling as officials throughout the museum try to deal with the bevy of problems even as a creature picks people off. Some of the kills and images are classics, at least in my mind.
A poor rescue worker who is lowered on a rope through the skylight gets picked off by a leaping monster. A silhouetted Margo runs in the foreground with the creature on her heels, busting through door after door.
“Jurassic Park” isn’t the only movie that comes to mind. So does “Alien 3” when the creature sidles up to a terrified Margo and licks her. Sequels in both of those franchises came out later in 1997, and that might be why “The Relic” was an afterthought in that standout year for scary sci-fi cinema.
“The Relic’s” box-office failure and inability to accurately capture the book’s mystery vibe might explain why we haven’t gotten another Preston & Child adaptation.
And in some fans’ minds, “The Relic” is why they hope there isn’t another adaptation of their work. It’s imperfect, especially in its handling of the mystery, but there’s enough good stuff in the movie that I find my fond memories have not betrayed me.