The Omen

The Omen (2006)

Directed by John Moore
Written by David Seltzer
Starring Liev Shreiber, Julia Stiles, David Thewlis, Mia Farrow, Seamus Davey Fitzpatrick, Pete Postelthwaite, Michael Gambon

So I saw The Omen last night, expecting another piece of shit remake of something from the '70s (they seem to be doing them in order, too, which is weird). Alright, honestly, I thought it was going to be pretty cool. I mean, who can argue with that cast? Besides, I'm not really a fan of the original Omen anyway.

The plot involves a US ambassador who finds out that his son may be the Anti-christ. I think they could have handled that a little better. Movies involving Satan usually only work if you believe in Satan, which I don't. Still, there's enough freaky stuff in so that it doesn't matter what your religious beliefs are. Catholic or not, the image of the air bubble travelling down the tube into a woman's arm is really disturbing.

That's the one thing I will say for the Omen series (and I've seen four out of five, including this one) is that they have really creative ways of killing people. That's pretty much what keeps me interested (and also what attracts me to shows like Six Feet Under or Dead Like Me, although in those cases I quickly got attached to the characters). It's hard to beat a guy getting decapitated by a massive pane of glass in the '76 Omen, or the guy getting cut in half with a cable in Omen 2, or the guy covered in burning plastic in Final Conflict. Indeed, the deaths in the remake were just as cool as the ones in the other movies.

Of course, there is the major problem with this movie. Most of it is line for line the same as the original (although it somehow manages to be creepier). I didn't find the first movie very memorable, however, so this one is a vast improvement.

I thought the cinematography was extremely good, as was the use of sound. The movie had a really good atmosphere, in other words. I loved how everything was kind of grey, except for occaisionally something that was red (which is very Shyamalan, but I'll let them get away with it). It's just one of those movies that has a certain quality to it that makes me very happy.

It also doesn't hurt that it's jam packed with actors who I absolutely love. Don't get me wrong, Gregory Peck and David Warner are pretty exciting, but I'm not quite as familiar with them as I am with Liev Schreiber and David Thewlis. That sort of added some emotional attachement to the characters which made me care whether or not they were going to die (and having seen the original, I knew exactly who was going to get it, as well as how and when, which removed any suspense there was). Still, I kind of hoped that maybe it would be okay, and nobody would get beheaded (which was disturbingly realistic) or impaled with big spikes, and that the good guys would win. Of course, that can't happen. The good guys have to wait for two more moives!

I do anticipate a sequel, and maybe, just maybe, I'll get to go see it (I'm still a little bitter about going to see X3 instead of this, especially now that I know it's good). In the original series, the Omen 2 was the best one, so I have high hopes for the sequel to the remake, should there be one (and by God, there will be one.)

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