The Last Knight Templar

With "Only 60 Seconds" Nicolas Cage and director Dominic Sena have delivered an action thriller worth seeing, which may be senseless, but stylistically absolutely convincing. Since the film could also catapult itself rapidly to the top of the international box office charts, a renewed collaboration of the two men was actually only a more than logical consequence. Unfortunately, their latest collaboration can only convince very limited.

"The Last Knight Templar"transports the viewer back to 14th century Europe: the plague has the population firmly in its grip, blaming supposed witches for the plague. When the two Knights Templar Behem (Nicolas Cage) and Felson (Ron Perlman) return home exhausted and disillusioned after years of fighting in the Crusades, they receive a mission from the dying Cardinal D`Ambroise (Christopher Lee) that they find difficult to refuse: they are to bring an alleged young witch (Claire Foy) to a remote monastery, where a secret ritual is to put an end to her demonic power and thus stop the plague. Together with the knight Eckhart (Ulrich Thomsen), the monk Debelzaq (Stephen Campbell Moore) and the young knight Kay (Robert Sheehan), the two warriors, led by the crook Hagamar (Stephen Graham) set out on a dangerous journey, at whose destination the real horror only begins.

In terms of content, Sena's fantasy adventure is very reminiscent of the plague horror "Black Death", which raged in theaters in 2010. However, Sena tries to make his film seem much more bombastic than it was in the fairly low-budget production starring Sean Bean. So right at the beginning, Sena has his two heroes fight in large, though all too obviously computer-created battles. Once Behem and Felson abandon their duties and return home, the film shows real potential. Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman have great chemistry, and the filming locations in the Austrian Alps and Hungary prove to be extremely atmospheric, providing a truly breathtaking backdrop at moments.

Even the beginning of the journey to the mysterious monastery can still entertain thanks to great imagery and the well-rounded cast. But the more the action slips into the realms of fantasy, the more it also loses its persuasiveness. When Sena then relies almost exclusively on computer effects in the last third and unleashes silly zombie monks and not very scary demons on the brave templars, unintentional comedy reigns over suspense or even goosebumps. It's a shame, really, because the groundwork laid earlier holds potential for an exciting story and the setting the perfect backdrop for a great fantasy adventure.

But the bottom line is that "The Last Knight Templar" is nothing more than another wasted opportunity to provide decent medieval fantasy with high show value. A little less computer nonsense and more tension generated by pure atmosphere, and the whole thing could have been a decent adventure movie. As it is, however, the last third is annoying and pushes the level down unnecessarily. Therefore: only for hard-boiled fantasy fans with restrictions worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp