The Librarian: Quest for the Spear
Screenplay by David N. Titcher.
Directed by Peter Winther.
[United States]: Warner Home Video, 2005.
30-something professional student Flynn Carsen has 22 degrees and a mom who's desperate for him to have a date. His latest professor graduates him early, to get him off of the work project, telling him it's for his own good. Flynn is all book smarts, no life smarts. He goes homes and broods and then a magical invitation for a job interview appears in the mail. He shows up at the Metropolitan Public Library, waits in a really long line and answers the most important interview question for a librarian. What's more important than knowledge? He gets the job even though he doesn't answer 'customer service'...
The job is actually more a museum curator than a librarian but I'm probably splitting hairs. They're a super, secret elite department dedicated to safeguarding the world's treasures like the Ark of the Covenant, Pandora's Box, Excalibur etc. By now, we're getting an eery feeling about where this movie is going. His second day on the job, a fragment of the Spear of Longinus is stolen. He's off to save the world. One free fall skydive, a collapsing bridge, 2 jungle chases, one jump into a waterfall and the adventure continues.
Homage or parody? I can't decide. It's so cheesy, it's fun. This lame line says it all: "They told me to trust no one" and the actress pulls out a badge that says her name is Nicole Noone. The whole premise makes no sense since he's trying to recover the other pieces of the spear so the villain can't but if the spear parts are put back together, it could be catastrophic so why lead the villain to them?? I still think the actors must have lost a bet (or owed someone big time) to star in this after they'd read the script. The biggest surprise -- there's a sequel!! Directed by Jonathan Frakes of Star Trek fame. I'm so desperate to see it, I just alphabetized the entire DVD collection to try and find it.