A
silly monster horror set in Chicago. Remember that show 'Primeval'?
This feels sort of like that.
There's
a mutating monster from Brazil who gets shipped to the Chicago
Natural History Museum, and spends the rest of the film chasing
people around it. There are plenty of usual notes hit here - there's
even a mistaken identity cat-related jump scare and a couple of kids
playing 'Night in the Museum' (luckily they don't end up being major
characters, as I initially feared).
Nothing feels particularly fresh
at all here. It could have been an episode of any number of “monster
of the week” shows (the mutant reminded me of that guy in 'The
X-Files' who ate people's livers in particular). The
acting is fine for the most part, though the characters are all
pretty boring and 2D (though I sort of liked the cop, despite the
repeated dog jokes and the over-emphasising of his superstitious
character trait - that whole plotline didn't really work for me). The
lighting is also too dim now and then, though I appreciate that this
is to obscure the monster, the practical effects for which were nice,
but the CG was badly dated (especially that scene at the end where
it's on fire which reminded me of those questionable effects in 'The
Host').
The monster also seems to have the ability to teleport - in one scene it's attacking people in the main hall, in the next it's chasing our main characters down a corridor in the east wing. This makes any movement by any character pointless as far as I'm concerned, as wherever you happen to be the monster may still pop up and rip your brain out.
Overall
a fair film to not pay too much attention to. It was quite nicely
paced, at least.
The Relic: 30.3