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Film Reviews

THE OMEN (Max)

By • Sep 30th, 2005 •

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To pursue the obvious linguistic tag, there are good Omens and bad
Omens. This is a so-so OMEN, following so closely its 1976 predecessor
to the point of almost frame by frame, it seals its own fate as you
watch, unsurprised by any of the the demonic shennanigans, and simply
draw comparisons: the nanny hangs herself from the roof of the mansion
at Damien’s birthday party; the looney doom-spouting priest gets
impaled by lightning rod from a church in a storm; a photographer
spots funny lines in photographs which seem to fortell modes of
impending grisly deaths, including his own, and yes, you guessed it,
he gets his head lopped off retrieving those all important
spawn-of-Satan-killing daggers. And also yes, at the end the demonic
child turns and looks through the fourth wall at the audience and
smiles.

Marco Beltrami’s score pays little homages to Jerry Goldsmith’s
original, but never comes close to its grandeur or menace. Julia
Stiles as the ill-fated mother elicits no sympathy and frankly I was
glad to see the end of her, I just wish she’d gone through an
ambulance roof like Lee Remick. Liev Schreiber just repeats his
‘American politician’ from THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, and never, ever,
do we feel that this is a close knit family, or even just a family –
they always seem as though they’ve only just met.

So for me I’m afraid the whole thing was just pointless, predictable
twaddle. The original was pointless, predictable twaddle too of
course, but at least it was just that – original, and thus remains the
superior film.

It was nice to see Mia Farrow on the Devil’s side this time. Hey,
maybe Damien was Rosemary’s Baby all along – now that would have made
a lot more sense…

Directed by John Moore
Written by David Seltzer

Cast:
Liev Schreiber … Robert Thorn
Julia Stiles … Katherine Thorn
David Thewlis … Keith Jennings
Mia Farrow … Mrs. Baylock
Pete Postlethwaite … Father Brennan
Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick … Damien
Michael Gambon … Bugenhagen

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