The Last Templar
The Last Templar
| 01 January 2009 (USA)
The Last Templar Trailers

An adaptation of Raymond Khoury's novel about a New York archaeologist researching the lost secrets of the medieval Knights Templar.

Reviews
ada the leading man is my tpye
Iseerphia All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.
Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
classicalsteve Probably the most glaring flaw of this rather over-long but somewhat entertaining religious-mystery in the same vain as the Da Vinci Code is its depiction of Turkey which looks more like Saudi Arabia in the film. (Turkey is a relatively plush and green landscape with some brown rolling hills, but not like the Sahara desert of Iraq and Saudi Arabia.) According to the back-story, the Templar Knights of the Middle Ages were on the verge of extinction in the late 13th century. (At dawn on Friday, 13 October 1307, many Templars were arrested on trumped up charges, and many were executed which destroyed the Order of Templar Knights.) The Templars have in their possession a document purportedly revealing the location of ancient Jewish-Hebrew treasures uncovered beneath the ruins of the ancient Jewish Temple of Jerusalem which was destroyed by the Romans in 66 CE. The master of the Templars ordered the document to be taken by a special envoy of knights back to Turkey. Jerusalem is under siege from Saracens who were conquering part of Jerusalem which was under the control of Christian Crusaders and Byzantine Eastern Orthodox. (Islam would permanently take control of Jerusalem and the Near East in the 15th century, only a few decades before Columbus' voyage.) Fast-forward 700 years. At a special exhibition at a museum in New York, artifacts of ancient and early medieval Christianity are on display. One of the artifact-finders is an Indiana Jones type, Tess Chaykin (Mira Sorvino). According to the story, her father had found the Cross of Constantine which he supposedly held on his deathbed when he converted to Christianity in the mid-4th century, an artifact which just happens to be on display. In the film, the ornate Cross itself looks like a Latin Cross in the style of many centuries later, more akin to those of the time of Charlemagne, circa 800 CE and later, not like the Cross Constantine would have known. Constantine's Cross looked more like an "X" with a "P" on the top, called the "Chi Rho". This is just one example of many little "flaws" in the film which would certainly cause the raising of eyebrows of many-an historian of Early Christianity.Then four guys on horses dressed in Templar garb with helmets storm the exhibit and snag several of the artifacts, including the Cross and some sort of 13th-century decoder with metal gears about the size of your average box of corn flakes. Again, such an artifact would have only been conducive no earlier than the Renaissance in the late 15th century, not as early as the 1200's as suggested by the film, another one of the film's interesting "innovations". Tess subdues the "Templar" with the Cross but the others get away. Turns out the entire escapade was masterminded by Bill Vance (Kenneth Welsh), a fellow archaeologist and friend of Tess' father. Turns out he only wanted the decoder because of a secret document he found which is in "Templar Code". However, Vance's accomplices are being killed by an assailant whose motives are as of yet unknown. FBI agent Sean Daley (Scott Foley) is hot on Tess' trail, at first suspecting she's behind the murders of the "Templar" thieves of the museum. We also learn Daley is a devout Catholic, and because the artifacts belong to the Vatican, he turns to a Monsignor in the diocese of New York, played by Victor Garber, who interestingly enough played Jesus in the film version of the hippie-religious musical "Godspell", produced in the early 1970's.The film then becomes similar to "The Da Vinci Code", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", and "National Treasure" where the codes lead to other secret messages which in turn lead to other places. All the while, we get flashbacks to the small band of Templars of the late 13th century and what they were trying to accomplish. The trail leads Tess and Agent Daley to Turkey where the messages claim they hid a secret artifact in a Byzantine Church. One of the film's strengths is we see the episode in flashback of the Templar's adventures only as the next clue reveals what they had done. Part of what makes the whole thing work is a memorable performance by Mira Sorvino. Although I'm sure she wasn't nominated for any awards for this film, we run with it largely because of her. I thought Foley's performance as the FBI agent seemed a beat inconsistent, where he's portrayed as a devout catholic while simultaneously seeming uncaring about the Templar artifacts. So much of the film has elements which mirror the Da Vinci Code. Bill Vance is very similar to the character of Sir Leigh Teabing, scholar of Early Christianity and the so-called Priory. Vance is portrayed as the foremost scholar of the Templar Knights. The enigmatic and silent assailant is a cold assassin, similar to Silas of the Da Vinci Code, although in "The Last Templar" he's black instead of an albino. Tess has elements of both Indiana Jones and Robert Langdon, and of course she's coupled together with a member of the opposite sex who's an FBI agent, similar to Agent Sophie Neveu of the French police who gets together with Langdon. Overall, the story seems to be about archaeology versus faith which has become a hot-button issue in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, particularly in the wake of the discoveries of known Christian gospels found in Egypt in the 1940's. The theme is a decent one, although I am not sure I bought the overall point of view of the story which is revealed in the final climactic scene. Similar to Leigh Teabing, Bill Vance becomes a rather enigmatic character who seems at odds with who is by film's end.
mdtrudell On our road trips, my wife has been reading aloud "The Last Templar". She started it on our trip around Michigan. We are not even half way through and it's an excellent novel (my opinion). It holds the interest and you can't wait to take another road trip to continue. I found the movie. Recommendation - don't watch. The movie opened at the well, not the when the Templar knights were fleeing the city that was overrun (no biggie). Then jumped to New York the way the book did. It looked like it had promise. But, 5 minutes into the movie, Tess turned into Wonder Woman (BTW her mother and daughter weren't present as they should have been) confronting the bad guys with a golden staff. By 7 minutes in, I deemed "this sucks" and shut it off. I had planned on watching up to the point we left off in the book.... no spoilers; but I just couldn't. It was that bad. —
jaybeekraft-esq This movie is so uneven that it is hard to believe it is the work of one writer. After an interesting and exciting start with the daring robbery of a Vatican exhibit at a Manhattan museum by knights on horseback dressed as Templars, stealing treasures including (guess what) a Templar decoding machine. This part of the movie is a decent heist / caper movie, and it's hard to dislike Mira Scorvino in anything. Tess is a likable, plucky female (rich) archaeologist and single mom, who gave up her life of adventurous excavations to stay home and take care of her daughter as her dad never had. Scenes with homages to the "Indiana Jones / Tomb Raider" genre abound. Of course, our robbers made a fatal mistake by stealing a key discovery of her late father of the "Cross of Constantine".Interspersed are somewhat confusing and garbled flashbacks that look like blurred outtakes from "Kingdom of Heaven", which basically serve to distract one from the uneven scenes and obscure the pretense of a plot. We have in this movie unscrupulous archeologists, evil minions of the Vatican dedicated to assuring the truth stays buried, and cameos by the CIA, the FBI, and the NYPD. Scenes and dialog almost seem lifted at points from "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", and absolutely miraculous coincidences and discoveries abound. Then we have the "recovery of the Titanic" portion of the movie, or is it "The Perfect Storm". I could talk about how sad this movie comes in the really wasted role of Omar Sharif as a Christian holy man on a Greek (?) island who rescues Tess and her FBI guy. The parallels between the ending of this movie on the cliff and parallel to "The Last Crusade" where the Templars' fake "Gospel of Yeshua" blows away in the wind. They treat ancient technology (an astrolabe) like it was a modern GPS.Worth watching for a laugh.
ertunc74 I saw Turkey before. It is not like that as seen at this film. Turkey is not like a Arabic country with desserts, camels etc. Especially Bodrum is so green. I think producer should have searched Turkey from Google before making movie. Everybody can reach information via internet in our age. Is it difficult? So, I found scenes of movie awful believe me.In addition Except fantastic movies, for every scenario should be based on candid background. I did not find the scenario and players successful. Movie is not exciting and absorbing. I am sorry but I can give only 1 point on 10. And This movie does not deserve money spent.