Le dernier templier

Treasure of the Knights Templar, codes, Catholic Church. Combine, switch out Nick Cage/Tom Hanks for Mira Sorvino, make her a single mother and blend until utterly bland. They make an Indiana Jones crack early on, probably to distract you from the obvious ripoffs of National Treasure.

A shame, because I like Mira Sorvino (she does looks great in this movie and half the shots are of her legs or derrière, also to distract you), Scott Foley and Victor Garber. If the writers had half the ability of one of these three actors it would have been much better, or never even made. This one belongs on the Lifetime Movie Channel, not NBC.

Three stars out of ten

In New York, during the opening of the exposition of the Treasures of the Vatican for the public, four criminals posing as Templar knights break in the museum riding horses and heist the valuable artifacts. The archaeologist Dr. Tess Chaykin (Mira Sorvino) steals the horse of a policeman and chases and captures one thief with Red Cross of Constantine. The FBI Agent Sean Daley (Scott Foley) teams up with Tess that learns that the criminals' prime intention is a decoder mechanical device that can provide the location of the Templar treasure. They travel to Turkey where Tess expects to find the treasure and discover a conspiracy of the Church to keep classified information in secret to protect the Catholic Church.

Yesterday I saw "The Last Templar" on a DVD just released in Brazil and I did not know that this is a mini-series. The DVD has 171 minutes running time; therefore the original series was edited and 69 minutes are missing. The edited film is too long and boring, without the suitable pace of an action movie, but it would be unfair to criticize this aspect since it is not the work of the director but the producer. The romantic corny conclusion is awful. I am a big fan of Mira Sorvino and the shape of this gorgeous actress is amazing and she does not look to be a forty-three year-old woman.

The lame screenplay is dreadful, with ridiculous situation such as: (1) Tess cries to the thief in the heist to return the Constantine Cross that does not belong to him; (2) Tess investigates the case with several murders by herself, holding information that might have helped the official investigation, and is released by FBI; (3) The Catholic agent does not drink coffee in the Lent, but he shags a woman that he has just known; (4) The experienced archaeologist Tess drives reckless on the streets to show off to Sean; (5) A city buried by a volcano has light and only dust inside the building; (6) In a perfect storm with a huge wave, the perfect attitude is to jump overboard. There are many other silly and stupid situations that make the film a comedy, and not a suspenseful adventure. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Último Templário" ("The Last Templar")

http://www.discoverbodrum.com/Eng/index.html , Bodrum is not a city from Aphganistan. We don't use camel to travel. Turkey has not deserts like sahara. We are not wearing like Arab's because we are TURK's . It is just a dream from a child I thing. If you want to make a serious movie you should do your job serious. Bodrum is a most popular holiday place and there ara so many hotels which is 5 star and Bodrum is a high education city of Turkey. You can find so many people who speaks foreign languages. If you were wrote another city name from Iraq, or Aphganistan your movie had a chance . but you haven't used your chance. I am not sorry ;)

Especially the part about Turkey because I am Turkish. Bodrum was shot like some town from the 3rd world, without even knowing the fact that every single person in Bodrum can speak English and I have never ever seen Bodrum like in the film! Bodrum is just more like Santorini,or a calmer Ibiza but definitely not whats like in the film! And moreover has even its own international airport,a museum of underwater archeology, and a lovely Castle of The Knights of St.John. Some Americans really like to show Turkey like a 3rd. world country -which is not- and if its like that,how on hell I know English! God this is sooo ridiculous!!! And all of a sudden she starts to speak in Turkish,which is very hard to understand what she says even for herself! It has almost nothing the same with the novel, I can understand that the producers did their best to keep it brief but, anyway,though I am quite keen on the history of Templar's, I was not expecting to watch such a mess! Sorry guys but this is nonsense!

The writing is a bit amateurish. Several scenes were just hard to accept. The opening scene ends with Mira Sorvino (in heels and mini skirt) jousting in Central Park to stop a medieval knight turned thief. In another scene Sorvino's character goes from old church tunnel to popping out of a manhole cover in mid Manhattan. The romance was clumsy and the ending unsatisfyingly predictable and sappy. Sorvino's acting was fine given the poor script she was burdened with. She is very believable as a smart academician who knows more than most about ancient artifacts. But the romantic relationship was just awkward and uninspiring. It looked like it came from a script a 15 year old boy wrote.