Waiting for The X-Files movie to arrive? Well, now you don't have to, thanks to this big-budget knockoff. Just as it's about to open a crucial exhibit on superstition, Chicago's Museum of Natural History receives a mysterious shipment from one of its vanished anthropologists. Pretty soon heads start to roll, literally, and it's up to a superstitious cop and a pretty, no-nonsense scientist (Penelope Ann Miller, channeling the spirit of Special Agent Dana Scully) to get to the bottom of things. Unfortunately, they do this in so much excruciating detail that The Relic sometimes seems more like a science lesson than a horror thriller. When the exposition finally stops, the plot kicks in, and the big scary creature (a combination of a beetle, a gecko, and a human being, we're told) starts stalking Chicago's elite, the movie is sort of fun. It doesn't, however, possess the intelligence needed to reach the level of the first two Alien films, or the extra layer of looniness needed to reach the level of Q: The Winged Serpent. Nor does it possess a hint of inventiveness, though four people are credited with its script. (Do you think Miller's conniving competitor will make it through the night?) The monster effects, as designed by Stan Winston, are stunners, but after Twister, it should be obvious that it's not the quality of the effects that matter so much as the quality of the film in which they appear.