106 Minutes, Color, USA, 2004

Written By: Davd N Titcher

Directed By: Peter Winther

Dramatis Personae:

Noah Wyle is Flynn Carsen, brilliant but naïve professional student, and the titular Librarian.

Sonya Walger is Nicole Noone, Flynn’s buff and violent assistant and bodyguard. Hmmm, a tough, gorgeous, female adventurer with a superior demeanor and a British accent; what could they POSSIBLY be invoking here?

Bob Newhart is Judson, Flynn’s mentor, a former Librarian and some manner of supernatural being (he IS Bob Newhart, after all).

Jane Curtin is Charlene, deadpan sarcastic secretary to the Library, Moneypenny to Flynn’s Bond…or something.

Kyle MacLachlan is Edward Wilde, former Librarian, now head of the Serpent Brotherhood, an Evil Organization Bent On World Domination™.

Kelly Hu is Lana, Asian Goth Chick and Wilde’s right-hand henchwoman.

David Dayan Fisher is Rhodes, Wilde’s chief thug, strong but disposable, as henchmen often are.

Olympia Dukakis is Margie Carsen, Flynn’s meddling mother.

Mario Ivan Martinez is Professor Harris, Flynn’s shady Egyptology professor.

Commentary:

The legacy of Indiana Jones is a thorny one. One of the reasons the character endures, along with the quality and the sheer fun of the films themselves, is his unique stature among action movie heroes. Indiana Jones could travel to exotic locations, romance feisty women, and dust some knuckles as well as any action hero could, but he was also a college professor. An intelligent, educated man, who could punch out a Thug as well as grade a term paper, who was equally capable of cataloging an obscure artifact and foiling the Nazis. Very few action heroes have brains to match their brawn, or at least of the “book smarts” variety, and I think that’s a large part of why Indy endures in the popular imagination. He’s the thinking man’s action hero, the “super nerd.” Such a character is difficult to do right, and attempts to recreate the things that made him great have often fallen short.

The Librarian, a series of made-for-TV movies chronicling the adventures of hapless super nerd Flynn Carsen, is a lightweight riff on Indiana Jones. All the proper elements are there – exotic locales, ancient magical items, colorful secondary characters – and they are played very much for fun. They’re not profound or brilliant movies by any stretch, but they’re fun to watch.

Quest For The Spear begins with our meeting Flynn Carsen, professional student. Blessed with a sharp analytic mind and a love of learning, Flynn has been in school for the bulk of his life. Now in his early thirties, Flynn has more advanced degrees in history, languages, life sciences, and fine literature than any human being should ever need, but he lacks any real life experience. Professor Harris realizes this, and once Flynn has assisted him in completing a full-scale replica of the Great Pyramid (complete with gold capstone), he “graduates” Flynn, kicking him out into the Real World.

Professor Harris is not alone in his concern for Flynn; Flynn’s mother continuously sets him up with young women in the hopes of seeing him pursue something other than books, but his social awkwardness never fails to drive them away. Despondent and depressed, Flynn locks himself in his room with his books.

This depression lifts when Flynn checks his mail the next day, and finds a curious invitation. He has been invited to interview for a position at the Metropolitan Public Library. Confused, but nevertheless intrigued by the possibility, Flynn goes to the interview. He finds himself in a ridiculously long line of applicants, each one of which are turned away either fuming angrily or sobbing uncontrollably. When it’s finally his turn, Flynn is understandably nervous. He meets the acid-tongued Charlene, who dismisses his qualifications and his attempts to be funny, and demands that he “tell me something nobody else who has walked in here could tell me.” Flynn responds with a display of deductive reasoning about Charlene’s home life that would make Sherlock Holmes’s head spin…and that seems to be clincher, for the next thing we know, Charlene cancels the rest of the interviews, and Judson appears out of thin air to give him the grand tour.

The grand tour proves to be much more than Flynn had bargained for or expected, for this is no ordinary library. The Library is a secret repository for rare and mystical objects from around the world (The Ark of the Covenant, Excalibur, etc.). The Librarians have been the custodians of these strange and often-dangerous items for thousands of years, protecting them from harm and from misuse by the wrong parties. Due to his thirst for knowledge and his observant mind, Flynn has been selected to be the next Librarian, chief guardian of all this arcane knowledge. Flynn is elated, but slightly disappointed to learn that he can never tell anyone what he really does for a living (not even his mother, who is dismayed to learn that her son has taken a job putting books on shelves).

Of course, the job is more than that, as is evident from the events of that night, when a group of thugs, led by Lana and Rhodes, break into the Library, knocking out Judson and the guards. When Charlene and Flynn arrive the next morning, they help Judson and consult the security camera footage. They determine that the thieves are members of the Serpent Brotherhood, descendants of an ancient splinter group of Librarians who sought to use the knowledge and power kept in the Library to rule Mankind, rather than protect it. Furthermore, they seemed to know exactly where to go and exactly what to take. In this case, the object they stole was a piece of the Spear of Destiny. The Roman lance that pierced the side of Christ, the Spear is an object imbued with incredible power – so much power, in fact, that previous Librarians deemed it too dangerous to remain in one piece. One piece was kept safe in the Library, while the other two were secreted away in far-flung corners of the world – locations so secret, that not even Judson knows where they are. The only clues to their whereabouts can be found in an ancient text written in an un-translated language. If the Brotherhood is trying to repair the Spear, our heroes must find the other two pieces first. Or rather, FLYNN must find them first, since he’s the Librarian and all. He’s given the approximate location of the second piece – somewhere in the Amazon – and the text to translate. He’s wished good luck by Charlene and Judson, then bundled off to save the world.

While on a plane bound for South America, Flynn struggles to translate the text and makes the acquaintance of a mysterious, beautiful, and arrogant woman. His lame efforts at small talk fall flat, so he concentrates on his translation. Unfortunately for Flynn, Lana, Rhodes, and a team of Serpent Brotherhood goons are on the same plane, and the moment he finishes his translation, they swoop in to capture him. Fortunately for Flynn, he is rescued by the mysterious woman – and by “rescue,” I mean she throws him out of the plane and follows him down with a parachute. Once safely on the ground, the woman introduces herself: Nicole Noone, special Library field operative. Judson sent her along to help Flynn. In time-honored tradition, Flynn and Nicole are polar opposites – he bookish and shy, she athletic and confident – and don’t get along at all…so you kind of know where this is heading.

But for the time being, the two of them trek into the interior of the Amazon Basin, following the clues Flynn discovers in the book. They have several close calls with the Serpent Brotherhood along the way, and eventually Nicole opens up to Flynn. She was the bodyguard – and romantic partner – of Edward Wilde, the Librarian before Flynn. Wilde died at the hands of the Serpent Brotherhood, and Nicole had blamed herself, believing she had gotten too close to her charge and had let her guard down because of it. She is determined both to keep Flynn alive and keep her emotions to herself.

After locating the hidden Mayan temple (they had Mayans in South America?) and braving the standard-issue deathtraps to be found within, Flynn and Nicole successfully claim the second piece of the Spear…and the Serpent Brotherhood arrive to claim them. They are taken back to their camp where they meet the Brotherhood’s leader: none other than Edward Wilde, very much alive and very much gone over to the Dark Side. It turns out he faked his death and assumed leadership of the Brotherhood, using the knowledge he acquired as Librarian to further his supervillain aspirations. Nicole is distraught, but Wilde feels no remorse as he prepares to execute her. Flynn stops him, however; Wilde will need Flynn’s help to find the third piece of the Spear, and he won’t get it if he kills Nicole. Wilde reluctantly agrees, and they are off to the hiding place of the final piece.

The final piece of the Spear is in Shangri-La, high in the Himalayas. The group penetrates the Buddhist temple there and finds the last piece. Seeing his opportunity, Flynn deliberately sets off another deathtrap, and in the confusion he and Nicole steal the piece and make a dramatic escape. Later, in a hotel somewhere in Mongolia, Flynn and Nicole celebrate their foiling of Wilde’s nefarious plot with some champagne and…ahem, dessert.

Flynn’s delight at finally scoring with a hot chick is short-lived, as he awakens the next morning to find both Nicole and the Spear fragment missing. Either Wilde kidnapped her and took the piece, or she had been working with Wilde the whole time. Either way, it’s a good bet that the Brotherhood now has all three fragments. Hastily he makes contact with Judson, who advises him on his next move. Splitting the Spear into three pieces required a tremendous amount of magical power, and putting it back together would require even more. It would require a proper alignment of celestial bodies – like, say, one that’s due to happen in a few days – and an architectural construct capable of focusing cosmic energy. Like, say, the capstone of the Great Pyramid.

…or, say, the exact replica that Flynn recently helped his Professor assemble.

Quest For The Spear is one of those movies kept aloft by the talent of its cast. It’s not a BAD movie, really, but it won’t be winning any Emmy Awards any time soon. The Librarian movies are based on a pretty solid concept – ancient magical artifacts, clandestine world-ruling organizations, and hopeless geeks who get to save the world and romance warrior women while find their place in the world – and they’re in large part well-executed. Sure, some of the jokes fall flat, and the underlying mythos is full of holes, but they’re such good-natured, fun little movies that you almost feel like a spoilsport pointing them out.

And it’s due in large part to the main cast that Quest For The Spear manages to be so endearing. Noah Wyle has basically made a career out of playing a man out of his league, and he brings an enthusiasm and wide-eyed innocence to the character of Flynn Carsen. He’s living every nerd’s fantasy: all the obscure minutiae he’s been studying turns out to actually be good for something. Can even turn him into a hero. It’s almost like Flynn Carsen is the consolation prize for every would-be boy-adventurer: we all want to be Indiana Jones, but we’ll probably end up being Flynn Carsen…and thanks to Noah Wyle’s appealing performance, that’s not really all that bad.

Everyone else in the cast does a fine job as well. Bob Newhart is surprisingly good the supernatural mentor Judson. He brings a warmth and easiness to the role, like everyone’s favorite uncle. It’s a bit of a shock to see how well the bumbling, stuttering Bob Newhart can play a dispenser of wisdom, but somehow it works. Kyle MacLachlan brings just the right amount of ham to his arch-villain role, playing Wilde with plenty of smugness and disdain, but with enough charisma for one to understand why Nicole would have been attracted to him. He’s never really all that menacing as the villain, but again, we are talking about a movie played largely for laughs. Jane Curtin brings her trademark deadpan sardonic wit to the role of humorless efficiency expert Charlene, and it works just fine. The only weak link in the cast is Sonya Walger, but I think it’s largely due to how her character is written. I mean, she’s basically playing Lara Croft here; not a lot of characterization to deal with.

The Librarian: Quest for the Spear remains a guilty pleasure of mine, yet I am not ashamed of my love for it. It’s one of the many movies chasing the ghost of Indiana Jones, and it sidesteps the mistake that many others have: aiming too high. The Indy movies were epics, packed with action and larger than life. So many imitators tried to duplicate the SCALE of the movies, rather than the THEME of the movies. In all the world-hopping and tomb-raiding and swash-buckling, I think that what made Indiana Jones unique was lost: he’s an intelligent man who also just happens to be an action hero. With The Librarian, you have an intelligent man who must BECOME an action hero. He must find the Ancient Whatsit and save the world, and he must do that by using his brains as much as his brawn (in fact, Flynn doesn’t have that much brawn to begin with). That gets sadly forgotten in most action movies, and it’s nice to see it appear…even if it is in a made-for-TV movie played for laughs.

Things To Look For:

- I always love seeing those ancient deathtraps in those hidden jungle temples, and noting how they somehow always manage to be in perfect working order despite lying dormant for centuries. I mean, what were those ancient treasure-hiding guys building these things out of? Did they commission some hapless villagers to occasionally maintain the traps over the years, replacing the odd piece of rotten wood or rat-chewed rope? I know what I said earlier, but I don’t feel like a spoilsport here, since other, more expensive movies have been guilty of far worse in this respect.

- One of the artifacts kept in the Library is apparently the Ark of the Covenant, and I can’t help but wonder…maybe when the Ark is locked away at the end Raiders of the Lost Ark, they locked it away HERE. Sure, it’s a stretch, but the possibility tickles me. Like for all his derring-do, Indy’s just blundering around in the world while Flynn knows what’s REALLY going on.

- Goth Chicks hold a special place in my heart. A product of my misspent youth, I suppose. And the only thing better than a Goth chick? An Asian Goth Chick. My God, what IS it about that? Nevertheless, for reasons I can’t fully explain, Kelly Hu has it going on in this movie. Which is fortunate, since she doesn’t have much else to do. There’s a running gag where she mistakes Flynn for an action hero (It’s actually Nicole that’s dragging him over cliffs and out of planes in dramatic escapes) and slowly begins to fall in love with him. It’s a potentially funny gag, but unfortunately it’s one that falls flat.

- If you thought Bob Newhart as a sage was weird, wait until the end of the movie, where our heroes must join forces to defeat the Serpent Brotherhood…and Judson takes on a small army of thugs single-handed. I will say this, above all else: any movie whose climax involves Bob Newhart kicking ass and taking names is okay in my book.

Written words (c) 2009-2010 Tim o'Brien. Not to be used without permission. Other content, including images, is intended as a Fair Use pursuant to 17 U.S.C. sec. 107.

Date Posted: January 15^th, 2009

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