Crusades

Just stop now and don't waste your time , dull and badly made .

The acting was find. The CGI was just horrible. It needed another 10-20 million for budget.

I couldn't sit through it. Special effects looked like my Nintendo 64, which is unacceptable for a 2010 movie. They were seriously laughable, like what you would see in a movie half way through post-production. The writing was predictable and unrealistic (supernatural beings aside), the dialogue was forced and awkward, the acting was mostly mediocre, and the photography looked amateurish. I chose it because I assumed the fact that James Frain was in it meant that the movie was at least well done. I enjoyed his acting in The Tudors and The Cape, but obviously he just jumped at not being cast as the bad guy for once. Terrible. Don't watch it. I meant to give it half a star, but unfortunately that's not an option.

Probably looked good on paper. A legend about the crucifix surviving until medieval times, some knights on a quest to find and secure it, and some demonic plagues besetting the knights. Lots of action, story, and special effects about supernatural power; right? Wrong. A rag-tag group of people are thrown together on this Indy Jones type relic hunt that argue about everything, from spirituality to the best brand of toothpaste. Argue, argue, argue. It gets annoying real fast, and one can only hope they have a sword battle that shuts them all up permanently. The premise held potential, but is hopelessly obscured behind this foolishness. You could watch one of those cable TV political argument shows and get the same thing.

When I saw James Frain (from the Tudors series), I thought this might rise above most SyFy dreck. In some ways it does since the special effects aren't always terrible and some of the acting is almost good. The story is very weak, at times incoherent and it's likely to offend some. Continuity errors abound and reaction shots are laughable at times. Spoilers: one of the worst effects is the CGI wolves that attack the party in the woods. I'm pretty sure you could animate a better wolf at home with free software than this. The demon is generally nearly as realistic as he was in the video game Diablo II but it's size seems to vary a great deal depending on the shot. The premise is very odd in that the Holy Cross, a religious relic that has traditionally been thought to be beneficial is somehow tainted and causes the demon(s) to follow and attack the party carrying it from the Crusades, sometimes preceding them somehow to possess monks etc. The fact it's immune to a crucifix but susceptible to a talisman the Muslim warrior (Alyy Khan) carries seems a tad offensive. The Cross is evil, the Muslim talisman is holy - what message are they trying to send? In typical fashion, after the non-whites have saved the "hero" many times they're struck down in a very ignominious way and for no real reason other than to leave the stage clear for the hero. Just to show they can't be consistent, the tainted relic of the Cross is then shoved down the demon's throat to destroy him which thoroughly muddles things in time for a very abrupt ending. Even for free this is worthless unless you like to make fun of bad movies with your friends. Some talented actors were wasted here.

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.

Dark Relic is set during 1099AD at the end of the first Crusade, the noble & Christian God fearing Knight Sir Gregory (James Frain) lead over a hundred men at the start of the Crusade but now his charges number less than ten, after much bloodshed & loss of life Sir Gregory & his few remaining loyal men have found an ancient relic that they soon come to believe is part of the wooden cross that Jesus was crucified to. Sir Gregory plans to sail home with the Holy relic & his men but a fierce storm at sea forces them to abandon the boat when it crashes into rocks on the coast of an unknown land, with no option left Sir Gregory & his men set off on foot to find help & carry on their journey but a series of terrible events lead them to believe that the Holy relic is cursed & attracts evil including a huge winged fire breathing Demon from Hell. As more of Sir Gregory's men fall victim to the evil curse he decides that the Holy relic must be destroyed... Directed by Lorenzo Sena credit has to go to the makers of Dark Relic for at least trying to make a SyFy Channel film that has some originality, the idea of a Holy Crusade in 1099AD where a Knight & his men are menaced by an evil curse sounds positively highbrow for the notoriously lazy people at the SyFy Channel. I suppose the only problem is that Dark Relic isn't that good, sure it's far from terrible & not as bad as your average SyFy Channel creature feature/giant monster film but when all said & done it's still difficult for me to recommend to casual viewers. The script for Dark Relic is perhaps more serious than the usual camp SyFy Channel offering with a fairly bleak tone that tries to touch upon the likes of religion, sacrifice, racism & faith but while these themes are briefly explored the script isn't ambitious enough to really drive these points home & say something meaningful. The overall impression I got while watching Dark Relic was that of seeing people dressed in Knight costumes walking through woods occasionally coming under attack from various things such as a swarm of Locust's, cannibal kung-fu Monk's (I kid you not) & really bad weather conditions. Dark Relic is a masterpiece compared to a lot of SyFy Channel crap but doesn't really stand up when seen against many other films, an interesting attempt & Dark Relicc isn't terrible but it's nowhere near great either. Before this was released the SyFy Channel ran a competition to name it, yes the title Dark Relic was actually the winning entry although I have no idea what the winner won, if anything at all. Apparently filmed under the title Crusades. There's a bit of gore, a couple of people are seen hanging upside down with their guts hanging out & there are a few slow motion sword fight scenes but don't expect anything as stylish or exciting as 300 (2006). The CGI computer effects are predictably awful, the shot of the boat sailing across the sea has to be seen to be believed it's so bad, I have games on my phone that feature more realistic computer graphics. The fire breathing Demon doesn't look much better either. I am not sure where Dark Relic was filmed (probably Bulgaria or Serbia) but some of the scenery looks quite nice but the low budget does show at times. The acting isn't too bad, it's better than in a lot of SyFy Channel films & it's odd not to see some has-been Hollywood star or wrestler somewhere. Dark Relic isn't the worst film ever made & it does try but the low budget & the whole SyFy Channel feel goes against it, it's a bit different but still not very good if you know what I mean.

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.

The idea was interesting, so I was willing to forgive the budget quality if it was a watchable movie at the least. Apart from this odd if very interesting idea and the good performances of James Frain and Alyy Khan, Dark Relic was anything but. Apart from these two performances, the rest of the acting is at best mediocre. A number of things didn't help them at all. The characters are little more than obnoxious stereotypes that we learn nothing about, while the dialogue constantly has a very awkward feel to it. There is nothing exciting in the story at all, which suffers further from a complete lack of coherence. The special effects are of really poor standard, I wasn't expecting high art of course considering the budget but these looked like examples of somebody not even trying. The camera work is hackneyed, while the direction is flat and the monster is very underused and as far from menacing as you can come. So all in all, dull and cheap, essentially a pretty poor but slightly redeemable SyFy movie that doesn't have much if any kind of value. 2/10 Bethany Cox

I give this flick a two because of the good idea. Finding a part of the real cross and being attacked by demons, could have been a good story. But ... At the first pictures of the movie you see crusaders after the war in clean cloth, with clean faces and fingernails. Well thats the point where you have to realize that it will be something like a lame Scifi channel production. But it gets worse. The discussions are what makes this movie really unrealistic. From the beginning of the movie everybody permanently tells the crusaders that the crusade maybe was a bad idea and it may not have been a holy war. When this the first time happens i got a smile on my face because i thought: All right heretic, that were your last words and now the slaughtering starts. But the crusaders in this movie are real open minded. They are open to discuss everything. Its allowed to call the crusade a bad idea all the time, its allowed to tell them that muslims and christians are basically the same religion and it is also allowed to tell them that Jesus was not the son of god. They are fine with all of that. The Muslim warrior which joins them later is also open for all this questions. The crusaders and the Muslim warrior do not have any problems with each other because ... the war is over. Oh, by the way. Now and then some bad made CGI creatures appear and disturb their discussion. I did not watch the movie to the end. If i want to see a hypocritical debate about religion which includes some ugly creatures, then i just will watch the next TV debate about this subject. So what is this all about? It seems like someone wanted to make a movie about religious tolerance between muslims, cristians and atheists based on the example of a happy group of crusaders and Muslim warriors. Well, good for him. But next time he should show this to his left wing lesbian vegetarian discussion group in private and do not publish it and steal 1,5 hours of the live time of fantasy movie fans.