The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice

Plot synopsis:
Glenn Estate Auction in London.
Flynn primps in his tux and struts with a reasonable degree of suaveness. Until he takes a sip of champagne and spits it everywhere.
He checks with Charlene over the phone. He's supposed to keep someone from getting a Ming vase -- without going over budget.
He gets a call from an angry and increasingly drunk girl, Katie. Mid-auction he gives her another excuse and she says he's given 100. He repeats that and has suddenly bid higher. Charlene calls on the other line, watching the numbers escalate online, asking if he's trying to bankrupt them. A series of twitches, outbursts and accidental bids later and, in an effort to get quickly to Katie waiting in the bar, Flynn jumps all the way to 1 million pounds. Charlene hyperventilates and Flynn gets the vase. The auctioneer congratulates him on appreciating fine art. Flynn picks up the vase and promptly drops it.
He picks up the Philosopher's Stone from the shards. It can turn anything it touches into gold, like arm of the other bidder's henchman. Golden fist and others come after Flynn for the stone and a sword fight ensues.
They stop to admire the art mid-fight and Flynn checks his watch and goes on to win.But at the bar, he's too late. Katie has left for the airport.Somewhere in the Carpathian mountain range some Russian goons rappel into a castle.
They find the tomb they're looking for.Flynn returns to the Library, where Charlene is on the phone, trying to explain that Flynn wasn't authorized to make that high a bid.
She starts in on him, but he doesn't want to hear it. And he's ruined his tux. It's a rental.She takes him to the large collections annex, which goes on forever. The library is as big as they need it to be. It's holding Noah's Arc and Judson is testing the Fountain of Youth.
They have another job for him, translating a manuscript, and Excaliber wants to do their weekly sword training.Flynn goes a little cuckoo, complaining that he has no life and his best friend in a sword. Since he's been working there, he hasn't been in a relationship with a woman that lasted more than six months.
Judson tells him to just think of himself as a celibate monk. That doesn't help.
They think maybe he should take a vacation.University of Bucharest, a professor lectures about Vlad the Impaler. Cheery stuff.
After the lecture he's approached by a man named Sergei Kubichek, who recently resigned as security minister for the Russian government. They tell the professor they found a body -- Dracula's body.
Professor Lazlo says it's a hoax, he's searched for it his entire life. He looks at one of the scrolls they brought and recognizes the Judas Chalice.Charlene shows up at Flynn's house. Her combination speed dating-wine tasting was two streets down. She seems to have enjoyed at least half of it. He's playing on-line poker in his pajamas. She tries to get him to leave town and suggests locations, like New Orleans.
But he's worried New Orleans will dump him, that he'll get his hopes up and be disappointed.
She tells him to follow his dream and see where it leads him. She stumbles out (she's biking).Flynn dreams he's in a strange bed, envisioning an ethereal woman reaching for him and a man on a horse statue whinnying at him.
When he wakes up, he's napping on a brochure of New Orleans. He decides to follow his dream.He arrives there in a seersucker suit, red bow tie and straw hat, Orville Reddenbacher's long lost son. He's picked up by Andre the cab driver, who tells him he knows where to find everything. He asks to go to the museum.(New Orleans montage of floats, crawfish, Bourbon Street, street musicians.)Flynn leaves his hotel at night, and sees couples everywhere he goes. He follows the sound of music and a woman singing to a big castle-like building.The professor and Sergei wait outside the old monastery, a church turned into a nightclub -- the very one where Flynn has just heard the siren sing.
He walks up to the singer after and tries to talk to her. He tells her she's the woman he's been dreaming about. She agrees that it sounds like a bad pick-up line, but she wants to go somewhere more private when she sees Sergei and the goons come in. They rush into a connected church with candles lit all over the altar. He recognizes it as an echo chamber, if you stand in the right spot one voice will sound like a chorus.She unties a key that was wrapped around her thigh and Flynn sputters. Then she tells him "it's OK, Librarian, you can drop the act" as she goes to unlock a small door on the altar.
She says she called him in his dreams. The Librarian is the only one who can protect the chalice. She puts something in his hand and the goons burst in.
He distracts them until she's standing in the right spot and he calls for a high C. The note shatters the glass and gives them a chance to escape.Simone and Flynn race upstairs as the goons chase, shooting after them. They reach the top and with nowhere to go but to another rooftop, Flynn tells her not to be nervous, but they'll need to....never mind. She jump/floats safely to the other building.
He does some computations and hurls himself, not quite making it all the way. She hauls him up. The goons stop short at the open window.
Back downstairs they report to a disappointed boss Sergei, with Professor Lazlo supervising. He notices an impression of the marker in the altar candle wax.Flynn and Simone stroll away safely as she tells him to embrace his destiny. She suggests they start with a drink.They stroll, eat food from a cart and swill drinks from enormous plastic cups (passing a street trombone player, director Jonathan Frakes. What up, Riker?). Flynn stops to ask her if she's with someone. When she says no, he kisses her. Awkward silence ensues until she suggests they not say good-night and rowdy foreplay follows back up in his room. It leads where those things do.Back in henchman HQ, they try to translate the wax.
Standing guard, one goon is attacked by something growling and unseen in the night.Flynn wakes up alone, with a red rose and the marker, which says something about a chalice.
Flynn goes to a barbershop where Judson appears as a blues guitarist and customer. He wants to know about the marker. It has a riddle and a name on it which seems to indicate the Judas Chalice -- made from the 30 pieces of silver given to Judas to betray Jesus. And, also, it's said to resurrect vampires. Judas hanged himself and might be the first vampire. That explains vampire's aversion to silver and holy water.Judson tells Flynn someone stole Dracula's coffin. The chalice also grants super powers to vampires.
Romania was a French territory in the 1800s so they sent it far far away, to New Orleans, also a French territory. So the chalice might be there.Flynn gets the cabbie to take him to a cemetery to see Marie Le Veux, mentioned on the marker. He thinks something's hidden in her tomb.
It's got a huge scary carved head on it. He puts the piece of silver in its mouth, as directed in the riddle, and the face pops out. He takes what's inside, walks around the corner and is grabbed by the goons.Back at their spooky house HQ, Flynn meets Sergei. He wants to create an army of unkillable soldiers, led by Dracula, to rebuild Russia.
When Flynn says they need him to translate what he found so they can't kill him, they bring out Lazlo. Flynn, knowing and admiring Lazlo's knowledge, admits he's expendable. Sergei notices four or five of his goons have disappeared.
They ply Flynn with hallucinogenic poison, but he unties his bonds and escapes. He finds Lazlo and they co-decode what looks like a coin as Flynn's trip kicks in. Flynn notices the coin is oxidizing, which means it's not silver. He rubs it, it's glass. A lens. He holds it to a candle and it casts a map, directing them to a ship in a bay. Lazlo, whose legs are in braces and who uses crutches, says he can't run to escape and tells Flynn to leave without him. He doesn't mention he's there of his own free will.Flynn experiences what is possibly the millionth drug-induced stroll through New Orleans. The goons find him in a deserted warehouse and prepare to fire. A light appears overhead. It's Simone, then it's a puff of wispy light, then it's Simone again. She leaps across the room too fast to be seen, taking out goons and, at the last minute, jumping in front of Flynn to take a bullet meant for him. She's hit. Flynn shoots open a gas line and ignites it to escape, carrying her with him.He sobs over her, begging her not to die because of him. She opens her eyes and sits up. Unharmed. He passes out.He wakes up in an opulent room. She tells him he didn't see her die -- she was already dead. A vampire. He checks for holes on his neck and finds none. (She doesn't kill for food, she has a freezer full of blood.)
She's 403 years old. "Well, I've dated older women before, but dead is new for me," he says.
She was born in Paris. She was in love with Francois, a teacher at the university. They became engaged. She was an opera singer of the royal court by age 25. Then she died, made undead by a vampire. She never saw Francois again (in flashback we see he's Flynn with a beard). She tried to kill the vampire who made her for 200 years. She followed the trail to the monastery to protect the marker because she didn't want vampires taking over. Then she appeared in his dream, asking for help. All vampires know about the Library.She shows him a painting of the Scholar, the greatest Librarian of all. His name translates to Judson.
It's nearly daybreak. Flynn knows where the chalice is, in a bay. But she can't drive in the daylight. Flynn calls cabbie Andre to call his cousin with a boat to travel up the swamp. They'll camp in the cabin to avoid sunlight.They arrive at nightfall, but have to paddle the rest of the way because the water's too shallow. They ignore a warning sign. They come upon a shipwrecked boat, Pirate Jean LaFitte's ship. Simone used to party on it.
Flynn has a couple of vampire questions. They can die by beheading and with a stake through the heart, but only with aspen, the tree Judas hanged himself from.They find Lafitte's skeleton, guarding his treasure. It sealed with a riddle, which they quickly figure out. They find the chalice inside.
Simone starts growling, fangs out, eyes beady. It's like catnip for her. They're about to leave when Sergei and his goons arrive. Simone recognizes Lazlo, and lunges for him, and Flynn realizes his betrayal. Sergei keeps Simone at bay with a cross. Sergei tells them he plans to resurrect Vlad the next day. He locks them in the cabin, betting that she'll need to feed soon.Flynn gets MacGyver, Librarian style. He rigs an explosion to power a canon through the door. It works, busting through and freeing them.Back at the dock, they find Andre in pain. He's been hit from behind. As Flynn tends him Simone gets on the boat...and takes off, apologizing to him. Flynn and Andre set out on foot.
They hitch a ride with another of Andre's cousins who tells them the boat is back safe on the dock.Flynn tries to determine which plantation house the Russians are staying in, relying on clues in his photographic memory.Flynn finds the house, about twenty feet behind Simone. He says she betrayed him, but she says she left him at the dock to protect him. They are interrupted by the goons, who tell them, "honestly, were not this good, you two kind of suck at sneaking around."Sergei opens Vlad's coffin. Lazlo tells him next they have to poor blood into the chalice and pour it on him at the stroke of midnight. They slice Flynn's hand, and drip the blood into the chalice. It blood bubbles and a creepy wind blows. The music swells, Sergei shouts lofty things and ceremoniously pours the blood on the bones. Where it splats and nothing happens.In the corner with the chalice, Lazlo chuckles. Then he swigs from the cup, growing tall and powerful. His leg braces spring off and Simone tells Flynn that's who she was protecting him from. He's the one who made her.
Lazlo takes a bite of Sergei and feeds. He's soon joined by the missing men, turned into vampires. He tells them to call him Vlad. The body in the coffin was some peasant. He lived among humans for years until he caught cholera during the pandemic in the 1800s and was crippled. He wanted the chalice for a cure. Vlad says he'll summon his children and plunge the world into darkness. He offers it to Simone, who contemplates lustily.
Then she spits her answer.
The vampires attack. Flynn shoots the chandelier, blinding the vampires, and they escape. Outside, Flynn tries to intimidate Vlad, talking tough as he picks up two fence slats for protection. Inside, Simone fights vampires but, at the suggestion of a still-human goon, she goes outside to help Flynn. Just in time, because Vlad has him by the neck.
Simone attacks Vlad and they are caught up in a whirl, midair. He drops the chalice.
Inside, the now-redeemed goon grapples with Sergei and, near being bitten, he takes out a grenade and blows them both up, for Russia.As Vlad gets the better of Simone, Flynn runs through the forest and into a tree. The right kind of tree.
He confronts Vlad, commanding him to leave Simone alone. Flynn shows him he has the chalice, and therefore controls Vlad.
Vlad, advancing, explains to the "stupid boy" that that's not how it works. Distracted, Vlad grabs for the chalice in Flynn's left hand. "Wrong hand," Flynn tells Vlad as he drives a tree branch stake through his heart.
From aspen tree, the one that killed the original vampire, Judas Iscariot.
Vlad bursts into flames as the faces of ghouls and spooks whoosh out. Then, poof, he's gone.Simone comes over, smiling.Flynn asks her to come to New York with him. He could show her the Library since she already knows about it. But she says now that he's killed the one that made her, she can be at peace. Basically, sorry, I dig you, but it's time for me to die.
Flynn protests, saying there's a way they could be together. He tentatively offers up his neck. She leans in, but then only kisses him gently.
She tells him he has to fulfill his destiny, as she fulfilled hers.
She tells him there's one thing he could do: Watch the sunrise with her.They sit on a bench, holding hands, as the sun rises over the water. She tells him she loved him, for a little while.
They say good-bye and kiss. She slowly starts to blow away, like golden ash lifted by the wind. He's left with only her ring and the sound of her song in his head.Back at the Library, he returns the chalice to Charlene, along with the marker. He tells her it says, "Follow your dream."
His led him home.He gives Judson the chalice. He says he'll be staying with the Library. He says he know who Judson is, that's he's over 2,000 years old.
And that the Library is pitched in a larger battle between good and evil.
Judson acknowledges there is a larger battle, and that Flynn and Library will play a larger role. As far as him being 2,000 years old...that's just insulting.

Tags: murder

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