Monday, January 24, 2011

The book that wasn't a movie.


Terry never asks for anything for Christmas. I am usually left to my own imagination. But this year, he asked for two books. He had read a review, or saw a link, or heard from someone... I can't remember... that "The Last Templar" was a great book. Terry loves history, especially archeology history. This book was a archaeological mystery book. The second book was by the same author.

I bought both books and wrapped them up and he opened them for Christmas. I hate giving gifts that people know what they are.. but, it was cool to give Terry something he actually wanted for a change too.
After all the Christmas/New Years celebrations were over and life returned to quiet, Terry was scanning the TV guide one evening, and discovered the "Last Templar" book was also a movie. He set the DVR to record the 2 part movie (2 hours each) and he set a goal to have the books read by the time the movie was recorded.
He raced through the first book... reading for hours each night. He loved every minute of it and couldn't wait to watch the movie. One of Terry's favorite movies was the National Treasure and he hoped that it would be somewhat along the same lines. I had my doubts about it, being a non-fan of suspense and adventure.... but Terry reassured me it wouldn't scare me. Besides, he bribed me with popcorn and M&Ms. What could I do.

It was a dark and snowy night when we snuggled into bed, with large bowls of snacks and the movie began. In the book, the hero or main character of the book is a woman who use to be an archaeologist, but gave it up to stay home with her young daughter. Her father was a famous archaeologist who specialized in religious and Roman history but he had died 6 months before.
In the movie, all this was the same. But that was it. The movie began with the heroin chatting with some guy at an art gallery, and all of a sudden 4 masked "Templars" break in on horseback and steal some of the artifacts. She breaks into a hero's run, grabs some sort of secular sword and attacks one of the thieves. She leaps onto one of the horses, rides out of the art gallery and follows, catches and beats up a second thief. All while wearing a party dress and expensive shoes.
After she is accosted by a police "investigator", she reams him out, complains profusely about how she ruined her shoes doing the polices' job and demands that the police replace her shoes.
You can now see smatterings of romance beginning between hero girl and nasty police man. But the deal is sealed when he shows up at her house the next day with a new pair of shoes. Fancy and expensive shoes show up
in a few spots in the movie, and with each appearance of new shoes... the movie gets cheesier and cheesier. Terry begins to more and more disgusted by the movie, and begins to explain all the differences between the book and the movie. After 4 hours (minus the millions of minutes of commercials ~ thank you DVR) the movie ends. It was a non believable, poorly acted excuse for a movie and it was more entertaining watching Terry's reaction.

His final quote....


Its like they turned the DiVinci Code into a episode of Moonlighting.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

well, at least you got to eat popcorn and M&Ms...love it!!!!
:)Deb

tdp said...

I saw that movie...and it was bad, lol.
At least the book was good :)

Anonymous said...

So, the book was good eh. Mert is looking for recommendations to read on his new kobo. Gail M.

Mick said...

Poor dad!! Nothing worse than seeing a great book to movie transition go sour!