The Relic

Museum work is much more dangerous than many people realize. Just check out The Relic if you don't believe me. These institutions are simply crawling with pushy patrons, money grubbing donors, mean-spirited board members, and ego bloated politicos. They could almost make the man-eating beastie in the museum's basement look cute.

But you don't have to be an ex-museum employee in order to enjoy The Relic. However, you do have to have a taste for the sort of old style critter genre that The Relic gamely tries to update. Reinventing this formula has been producer Gale Ann Hurd's forte, especially in such previous movies as Aliens and Tremors. The Relic offers a reasonably zesty replay of these past triumphs, but the film never quite overcomes its own sense of deja vu.

Chicago's Natural History Museum has just received a strange shipment from Brazil. The boxes are suppose to contain an incredible find from the darkest heart of the Amazon. But the only thing to arrive in the windy city is a collection of large leaves covered with some mysterious orange spots. The possibility of an exotic fungi causes the institution to order the samples destroyed. Fortunately, Dr. Margo Green (Penelope Ann Miller) is the kind of scientist who never obey orders. She is also the kind of person who never saw this sort of movie. Otherwise, she would have burned those babies.

Several graphic murders later, Dr. Green begins to suspect that something is amidst. Equally concerned is Lt. D'Agosta (Tom Sizemore), a police detective who can't help but notice that the killer has an odd appetite for the victim's brains. In Chicago, most murderers merely settle for a pizza after each killing.

But the sudden increase in the museum's fatality rate is not enough to convince its director (Linda Hunt) to cancel a fancy evening soiree. All the finest (that is, snottiest) people will be there, so a fine night of dining is guaranteed. Too bad none of the guests realize their current place in the food chain.

As directed by Peter (2010 and Timecop) Hyams, The Relic has a cool photographic eye to accentuate its fast pace. Though the second half bogs down into a protracted "who will survive" melee, the movie retains enough excitement to keep most viewers half glued to their seats (more or less). Besides, there is an odd thrill at the sight of Penelope Ann Miller's transformation from slinky model into campy action hero with a mere toss of her high heels. Granted, Sigourney Weaver could have her for breakfast,
but then Weaver's Ripley would have made mincemeat out of this new Stan Winston creation in two seconds.

Which is another way of saying that The Relic is an amusing but pale reminder of some better films. It has its chilling moments (though mostly during the first half) and can, upon occasion, scare the stripes off your socks. But the movie never quite succeeds in either matching or surpassing the other films that it is so endlessly based on.

On the other hand, museum's really are this dangerous. That is why those of us who have worked in them are such a macho breed.

The Shadow

Can you spell the word tedium? The Shadow can. This movie also defines the word, because The Shadow is a colossal bore that manages to drain the fun out of one of the zippier superhero concepts ever cooked up by the pulp magazines of the 1930s.

What should have been good, clean, vio­lent entertainment has been scrambled into a sticky mess of incoherent story telling and terrible acting. Only the special effects are outstand­ing, and they're mostly devoted to showing you things that are supposed to be invisible. So the best parts of The Shadow are the things you see the least.

The current version of The Shadow is based more upon the original pulp novels than the old radio series, which means that the movie partakes of the books' more ram­bling structure. The whole concept of the darkly heroic Shadow was slapped together through a decade of hectic writing during the Great Depression, and the movie bor­rows freely from a wide menu of contradic­tory sources. The screenplay by David Koepp {Jurassic Park and Carlito's Way) should have provided plenty of room in which to maneuver, but the plot sputters repeatedly and never goes any place.

The movie is surprisingly incapable of milking a single drop of dramatic interest from the Shadows own murderous, shad­owy past. In this version, Lamont Cranston (Alec Baldwin) is an American-born war­lord who's killing his way to the top of the Tibetan opium trade. Despite his nefarious lifestyle, there's supposed to be an essentially noble spirit inside of the debased Cranston, so a Tibetan Buddhist priest forces him to take on the mantle of his own dark side in the pursuit of justice. He also teaches Cranston all sorts of nifty tricks, like mass hypnosis and mental telepathy.

Unfortunately, this priest teaches the same things to Shiwan Khan (John Lone), the last descendant of Genghis. Since Shiwan is a chip off the old barbarian block, he naturally wants to use his powers to con­quer the world. He intends to do this by blowing up New York City with a Chinese variation of the atomic bomb.

Lone may play a heinous baddie, but at least his character is colorful. As the Shad­ow, Baldwin is dreadful, except when he poses in the costume. Penelope Ann Miller, as the Shadow s love interest, is equally bad, giving a performance that weaves between spaciness and bad comedy. Only Jonathan Winters — as Cranston's uncle, the bum­bling police commissioner who can't figure out the identity of the shadowy figure who's spooking the city — breathes any life into this movie.

So if you really want to frolic in the wild exploits of The Shadow this summer, your best bet is to locate recordings of the radio show. They're exciting.