Genre: Action/Fantasy
Director: Gore Verbinski
Writer: Roy Horne
Based on the animated series
Cast: Vin Diesel, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Zachary Quinto, Toby Kebbel, Brian Cox, John C. Reilly, Evan Peters, Melissa George, Kevin McKidd, Kristofer Hivju, David Thewlis, Sophie Lowe, Josh Pence
Plot: A crowd walking through the streets of New York City are startled by the sounds of explosions at the top of a skyscraper. Debris begins to rain down from the sky. NYPD Detective Elisa Maza (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) pulls up. She orders the crowd back and notices claw marks in one of the fallen stones.
In 1018 AD, a Scottish castle is under attack by a band of Vikings led by Hakon (Kristofer Hivju). As the castle's defenses are failing, the Captain of the Guard (Kevin McKidd) reassures his men that they can hold off the vikings a few more minutes until sunset. The vikings make it into the castle and Hakon heads up one of the towers for a vantage point. When he gets to the top, the gargoyle there starts to come to life. Hakon swings at Goliath (Vin Diesel), the leader of the gargoyles, making him bleed. The gargoyles attack the invading vikings and easily overwhelm them. As the vikings flee, Hakon shouts that he'll be back. The Captain of the Guard thanks Goliath for his help.
Later that evening, there is a celebration at the castle. Princess Katherine (Sophie Lowe) thanks the Captain for fighting well, but he tells her that the gargoyles are the real heroes. Goliath and his mate Demona (Melissa George) enter. People are outraged, but the Captain explains to everyone that he invited them so that everyone could recognize their bravery. The princess expresses her anger, and Demona growls at her. Goliath calms Demona. The princess tells the Captain that he should report to her advisor the Magus (David Thewlis) from now on, not directly to her. The Magus returns to his chambers and consults his spellbook. Demona is angry that after saving the humans' lives, they are repaid with contempt. The Captain agrees and apologizes. He tells the gargoyles that the vikings may return at sunrise, and that the gargoyles should chase them off for good. Goliath refuses to leave the castle unguarded. The Captain persists and Goliath reluctantly agrees, but will only bring one other gargoyle with him so that the castle may remain protected. He tells Demona that he will leave her in charge.
As the next day dawns, the gargoyles are once again immobilized in stone on the parapets. A hooded figure rides out of the castle, and heads to the Viking camp. Once there, he talks to Hakon about arranging a bargain for the fall of the castle.
In the courtyard, Broadway (John C. Reilly), a jovial gargoyle, is eating, while the other gargoyles, Lexington (Toby Kebbell), Lexington (Evan Peters) and Bronx, a dog-like gargoyle, are playing a game. They are suddenly harassed by a mother who doesn't like that the gargoyles are around while her children are still out. The gargoyles try to calm her down, but she begins riling up other villagers, forcing the gargoyles to frighten away her harassers. Goliath arrives and reprimands them for threatening the humans they are meant to protect. He orders them to remain in their nesting caverns where the clan's eggs are resting.
Goliath and his mentor Hudson (Brian Cox) fly over the countryside looking for the vikings. They follow tracks into the forest. Goliath spots the vikings and they attack, but it turns out to only be a few vikings. It was a decoy to lead them away from the castle. They try to hurry back to the castle to give warning, but are caught by the sunrise and are frozen in stone.
At the castle, the vikings attack. The guards aim their bows, but the strings break, leaving them defenseless. The castle's gates are raised, and the vikings storm the castle, easily overrunning it. The Princess asks the Captain for help. The vikings take the castle and lead off their prisoners. Hakon asks the Captain why he decided to betray his own kind. The Captain answers that they are not his kind. Hakon walks over to a gargoyle and raises his mace. The Captain tries to stop him, but Hakon shoves the Captain out of the way and smashes all of the gargoyles to rubble.
Hudson and Goliath return after sunset to find the castle in flames. Goliath goes to Demona's perch, picks up her crumbled remains and roars in anguish. Hudson examines the bowstrings and sees that the bows were tampered with. Brooklyn, Lexington, Broadway and Bronx come out of the rookery and see the devastation. Enraged at the murder of their fellow gargoyles, the survivors pursue the vikings.
Far from the castle, the vikings set up camp with Princess Katharine, Magus and other townspeople as their prisoners. Hakon taunts Magus by burning pages from his spellbook, the Grimoum Arcanorum. The gargoyles attack the camp. Hakon and the Captain flee with the Princess. Goliath pursues them while the other gargoyles remain in camp to fight the other vikings. The Magus frees himself and opens his spellbook and begins to recite an incantation. Goliath confronts the Captain for his treachery. Hakon blames the slaughter of the gargoyles on the Captain, causing the Captain to attack Hakon in anger, tackling him over the side of a cliff to their deaths. Goliath saves Katharine and brings her back to the camp, only to find the remaining members of his clan in stone sleep at night. The Magus, seeing the Princess is still alive, is sorry for casting the spell. He tells Goliath that he is unable to reverse the spell due to the pages burned by Hakon, that the gargoyles will sleep until the castle rises above the clouds. Goliath returns the members of his clan to their perches at the castle. He leaves the clan's eggs in the care of Katharine and Magus, and request Magus to cast his spell upon him so that he can remain with his clan and share their fate.
1000 years later, the castle is in ruin. Billionaire David Xanatos (Zachary Quinto) purchases the castle and has it and the gargoyles carefully shipped to and reconstructed at the top of his skyscraper in New York City, along with the sleeping gargoyles. As the sun set, Xanatos watches as Goliath come back to life, waking from his long slumber. He stretches and lets out a roar as the other gargoyles wake up as well. They have a joyful reunion that is cut short when they notice where they are. Xanatos walks up to them and greets them. He tells the gargoyles that they've been asleep for 1000 years and that he learned of the castle and the gargoyles from the Grimoum Arcanorum, the Magus' spellbook which Xanatos has recently acquired. Lexington asks about the eggs. Xanatos says that the eggs are gone and that they are the last of their kind.
A helicopter lands in the castle's courtyard. Several commandos jump out of the chopper and surround Xanatos. Goliath tells the other gargoyles that they must protect the castle, and attack the commandos. Xanatos is able to run into the building and pulls out a laser rifle and joins the battle. One of the commandos throws a grenade at Goliath, sending him sailing off the castle wall and down toward the streets below. Goliath grabs hold of the side of the building and climbs back up. One commando has broken off from the others and steals a briefcase from Xanatos' office. Xanatos opens fire on the helicopter, but the commandos escape with the briefcase. Xanatos asks the gargoyles to stay to defend their home and his headquarters. Goliath considers for a moment and agrees. He tells Xanatos that they are grateful to him for breaking the spell, but that they will never trust humans again.
Maza enters the Xanatos Industries building to investigate the source of the explosions. She is greeted by Xanatos' assistant Owen Burke (Josh Pence). He apologizes for the incident, saying a generator exploded and that Xanatos will pay for any damage. She tells him that she heard automatic weapon fire and that she wants to look around now, or she'll come back with a warrant. Owen takes Maza to Xanatos, who reveals that some men working for a rival company attacked to steal some technology his company has been developing.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn, Lexington and Broadway have made their way to a kitchen in the building. Confused by all of the modern appliances, they end up making a mess and destroying several devices.
Owen interrupts Xanatos and Maza to say there is a problem in the kitchen with their new guests. Xanatos excuses himself and Owen shows Maza to the elevator. On her way out, she sees Hudson on one of the walls, and she thinks she sees him move. Maza hits the stop button on the elevator and gets off on the next floor to continue her investigation. She makes her way to the top of the castle. She sees Bronx and pulls out her gun, but Goliath stop her and takes the gun. Scared, she falls over the side of the castle. As Maza falls off the building, Goliath dives after her. He catches her and flies her down to a ledge. He takes her back up to the top of the building where the other gargoyles are waiting. Goliath tells Maza how they came to be there, while she tells them about what her job entails. She thanks Goliath for saving her life and offers to show him the city.
Xanatos asks Goliath if he can help recover the stolen material, which he has determined has been stolen by rival company Cyberbiotics. Goliath says he will have to think about it since it doesn't involve protecting the castle.
The next evening, Brooklyn, Lexington, and Broadway go flying to explore the city. Maza signals Goliath from a neighboring rooftop. She gives him a tour of various New York landmarks. Brooklyn, Lexington, and Broadway are perched on a rooftop contemplating the wonders that they have seen. A motorcycle drives by on the street below. Lexington is fascinated and flies after it to investigate. Lexington scares the driver, who wipes out and runs away. Brooklyn and Broadway land next to him and reminds him that Goliath said not to let anyone see them. Lexington climbs onto the bike. Broadway tells him to be careful, but Lexington says that it looks simple enough. He pops the clutch, and the bike races off. It heads toward a wall, and Lexington jumps off just before it hits and bursts into flames. The three of them watch the fire and agree not to tell Goliath.
Maza and Goliath walk through Central Park. A dart gun emerges from the brush and fires into Goliath's shoulder. The commandos that attacked the castle run from the trees. Elisa draws her gun, but it is knocked away by the commandos. The leader of the commandos levels his gun at Goliath, who is incapacitated on the ground. Maza takes out the commando that is holding her. She runs toward the leader and knocks him over. Goliath picks up Maza and runs off. One commando follows, firing at them. Goliath runs up a small hill, and catches enough air to fly off. Brooklyn, Lexington and Broadway fly over the Manhattan skyline. Maza finds a transponder device on Goliath's back and say that's how they were found. Goliath recognizes the Cyberbiotics logo from his conversation with Xanatos. He realizes that the sun will be up soon and there isn't enough time to make it back to the castle. She tells him they have to keep moving to evade the commandos, but she sees him turn into stone.
Xanatos asks Goliath to come to his office. In the office, Goliath is shocked to see Demona. The two long-lost lovers embrace. She explains that when she returned to the castle, the Magus had already turned the others to stone. She begged him to cast his spell on her as well, so she could awaken with the rest of them. Xanatos says that he acquired her for his private collection about a year ago. After he woke the other gargoyles, it seemed a trip to the castle would do the same for her. She asks him to help Xanatos recover the stolen material from Cyberbiotics.
Xanatos briefs the gargoyles on how to steal the material back. He explains that the material will be split up between three different locations: an airship, a tower, and an underground base, and that they all must be hit at the same time. Goliath and Demona will take the airship; Brooklyn, Lexington, and Broadway will take the tower; while Hudson and Bronx will attack the underground base. Xanatos smiles as they leave to carry out their missions.
Goliath and Demona fly toward the airship. Brooklyn, Lexington and Broadway break into the tower Goliath and Demona fight guards on the ship, and Goliath is surprised by the aggression with which Demona attacks. Brooklyn, Lexington and Broadway make their way through a lab and intimidate the technicians into giving the stolen material back. Hudson is having trouble finding the material, but spots a security camera and allows himself to be captured while Bronx follows. Once Hudson is led inside, Bronx attacks, and together they fight off the guards and steal back the material. While Demona retrieves the a drive with the stolen data, Goliath occupies the guards. She sets fire to the airship and jumps out. Goliath follows. The airship crashes into the ocean. They gargoyles give the material back to a thankful Xanatos.
Goliath tells Demona about Maza, but she tells him that Xanatos is their only human friend and that humanity is their enemy. Goliath goes out to meet Maza, who tells him that she knows he was involved in the Cyberbiotics robbery. He tells her that the gargoyles were simply helping Xanatos recover something that was stolen from him. Maza tells him that the data actually belonged to Cyberbiotics and that she believes Xanatos has tricked him into stealing the data for him.
The gargoyles are eating dinner in the castle, when suddenly they are attacked by robotic gargoyles led by Demona. Xanatos tells them to attack. Hudson rips one of the robots nearly in half in a rage. Lexington is hit by a laser blast mid-flight, but is caught by Brooklyn. Just as a robot is about to fire on the two of them, Goliath flies into the robot, sending it crashing into one of the castle walls. Downstairs, Maza runs into the building.
Having destroyed all the robots, the gargoyle clan gathers, thinking they've won. Demona aims a rocket launcher at them, while Xanatos readies his own laser rifle. Demona fires the rocket at Brooklyn and Goliath, who barely manage to dodge it. Goliath asks Demona what she's doing. She goes on a rant against humanity, and fires another rocket at Goliath, she misses but he gets thrown into a wall by the blast. She gets closer to him. Just as she's about to fire from close range, Demona is tackled by Maza. The rocket goes astray, hitting a wall, sending debris knocking into Xanatos, who had been holding the rest of the clan at bay while Demona tried to handle Goliath. The battlement they are one crumbles, throwing both Maza and Demona off and falling toward the ground. Goliath jumps from the building, gliding down to catch Maza, but Demona drops out of sight amongst a cloud of smoke and debris.
Back at the top of the castle, Goliath holds Xanatos over the edge. He tells him that Demona wanted him to destroy humanity and that might as well start with him. Maza stops him, telling him that dropping Xanatos would make him no better than Demona. Goliath tosses Xanatos down onto stairs in front of Maza and Hudson. The gargoyles all go atop their perches before the sun rises.
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