If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Good concept, poorly executed.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

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.

The movie is made up carelessly. Scriptwriter and director don't know anything about Turkey and Turkish people. Turkish people don't look like an Arab, the license plates of cars is not like in the film like another countries; Rasoulis is not a Turkish name, Mediterranean Sea doesn't have such waves, in Bodrum there is only flora and sea not a desert. Deserts shall be in Arabic countries but NOT IN TURKEY. Bodrum is a touristic coast town which has luxury hotels. In Bodrum there are not camels and people who warping scarfs on their head. The film is only made up for grove up a bad view for Muslims and Turkey, by poor brains

If you are familiar with the action/detective/adventure genre we know from classics like the "Indiana Jones" franchise or the franchise built around Dan Brown and perhaps the quite bad "National Treasure" franchise or "Lost City Raiders", there is little "The Last Templar" has to offer. Most of the mini-series I felt like I was watching a poorly acted, poorly researched, poorly scripted, poorly directed extended remake of "The Da Vinci Code" with a little bit of "Indiana Jones" thrown in the mix, that somehow managed to add a pro-Catholic message.At the very start of the mini-series, I just new I was not going to like it. While there's an exposition of ancient Vatican artifacts being held in the middle of New York City, four men fully dressed in medieval Templar outfits are riding their horses through the metropolis, somehow not being stopped by police officers. Then they ride inside the exposition area after first decapitating a guard, steal a whole bunch of artifacts and ride off into the night.The only valid reason I could think of why these guys would wear such an anachronistic outfit to go rob an exposition was if they were actual Templars in their authentic outfits who traveled through time, but this just wasn't that kind of story. The more I hoped for an alternative explanation, the more I got disappointed when it turned out they never even cared to offer one. We were told that one of the artifacts was a Templar artifact and one of the robbers was an expert on Templar history, but that's really all the clues we get on why the robbers came up with the ludicrous idea to use horses and medieval outfits. Did they really expect that anyone with more than two brain cells would find it remotely plausible that four men dressed as Templars and riding on horses rob an exposition of ancient artifacts in the center of New York City?! But let's not stop here. The Indiana Jane of our story (Mira Sorvino, why are do doing this?) runs after the robbers in her cocktail dress and high heels, steals a police horse and ancient pope staff in the process, continues to follow the robbers and then manages to knock one of them out in some park (Central Park?). After being arrested when taking an artifact from the knocked out robber, she's nearly instantly believed by the FBI agent that's put on the case who decides to let her go.This pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the mini-series and the plot never becomes any more credible than in the first few scenes I just described. The foreign locations are hilariously unauthentic, the Templar mythology is childish, the events taking place are too contrived to take seriously and the main characters seem to make all the right decisions while at the same time coming off as incredibly naive. Besides our Indiana Jane's (actually it's Tess Chaykin, but I prefer to call her Indiana Jane) little daughter, none of the important characters seemed remotely believable in what they said or did. I suspect this indicates the mental age of the people involved.While these are already more than enough reasons to think of this as a horrible mini-series, what offset me most was the way they decided to end it. The last part of the mini-series was not only incredibly boring, when something actually happened it was an insult to rationality and an ode to ignorance. Somehow our always rational archaeologist who had put most of her life in service for the search for historical truth and accuracy suddenly became a Christian after being cared for by a religious hermit on some remote Greek island (who for some reason spoke perfect English) and noticing the apparent harmony of the local community. Somehow she must have figured that it was Christianity that made these people so kind and caring and that if she wanted to be just as kind and caring she had to become a Christian. The logical fallacies involved here are just staggering. She ignores the fact that being kind and caring is unrelated to whatever mythology you believe in and that there are Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, Asatruar, Shintoists as well as atheists that are just as kind and caring. She ignores the fact that the Catholic Church was involved in mass murder for a significant part of its history and that there was a cardinal having people murdered in order to stop her own quest. She ignores the fact that faith in a primitive anthropomorphic personal deity goes against everything she's ever stood for. etc.What's even more shocking, is that she somehow decides to throw away the gospel of Jeshuah because she apparently thinks it's better it's not known to the world. I guess she didn't want to lose her new-found beliefs if scientific research proved the document to be authentic, but that's pretty much as unscientific as it goes. Not only does this go against everything she's ever stood for, it is probably the worst thing an archaeologist could possible do from a scientific perspective. In fact, it's so anti-scientific and pro-ignorance it's pretty much in line with the attitude of the Spanish inquisition during the days of Galileo, Keppler, Copernicus and Newton... as well the murdering cardinal from the same mini-series."The Last Templar" is a totally unnecessary waste of film that lasts too long to enjoy for its cheesiness and that's too ignorant not to get angry if you have more than two brain cells. Aaargh !

The Last Templar, with its mysterious and catchy title, does not contain the necessary excitement and the right information. Especially the part about Bodrum, Turkey... Really... Please.. Hollywood... I'm talking to you... Since you're the capital of the World for Film Production, when you make a movie, the whole world watches... That's why you should be more careful in giving out the true and updated information. First of all, there is no sand or dessert in Bodrum. Bodrum is now one of the hottest jet-set spots in the world. You might not spot a single camel but there are plenty of 100-foot-plus megayachts and Bentleys. You might not spot a woman with a turban but there are thousands of Turkish ladies with bikinis. Would Paul Allen of Microsoft or Billionaire Roman Abramovic bring their 400 foot yachts to a 'awful place' called Bodrum... like they show in the movie? You decide. I hope you understand the point I'm trying to make...