Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I thought I'd be S.O.L. when it came to seeing this summer's blockbusters early enough to review 'em due to my relocation to Wellington, New Zealand this summer (I'm here until Comic-Con in mid-July), but low and behold a quick visit to the local Reading Cinema downtown alerted me to a 6-6-06 screening THE OMEN remake. Despite the negative reviews I went ahead and bought a ticket (for the 6:06pm screening, naturally) figuring if I was ever going to see it, what better time to do so?
For starters, I'm a big fan of Richard Donner's original OMEN film. Big fan. I even really like DAMEIN: OMEN 2, though the series was obviously stretching once it got past the first film. Donner cast the original to perfection. The gore isn't very bloody, but incredibly graphic, if that makes any sense. David Warner's death is still unparalleled in terms of cinematic beheadings. And Jerry Goldsmith's incredible score... All that plus Richard Donner working in an era where he was at the top of his game add up to a genre classic and a personal favorite.
You'd think with my feelings on the original that I'd be totally against a remake, but I wasn't. Even with John Moore in the director's chair I wasn't. His cast intrigued me. Every single known actor cast felt interesting. Liev Schreiber is a strong actor, Julia Stiles can be very strong as well and then you factor in the great character actor additions like Pete Postlethwaite and David Thewlis, two actors I love seeing in genre stuff. The cherry on the top was the inspired casting of Mia Farrow as Mrs. Baylock.
Then the first images of Damien came out and I found myself doubting a bit. The kid looked good and creepy, but the whole point of the character and of Robert Thorne's journey through the film was that you couldn't believe this child was the son of the Devil. The original kid was almost cherubic. Sure, he was creepy, too, but that grew out of specific moments, not his relaxed face. But then I really dug the teaser trailer, so there you go.
And tonight I saw the film.
The good of the film is exactly what I was looking forward to: seeing the cast play. Liev and Stiles were about as strong as I expected they'd be... in fact, no one excelled past my hopeful expectations with the possible exception of Mia Farrow, who was just great. I mean, she birthed the Anti-Christ already, so she's at home in a film like this. The character actors do their best and are all very good, but I honestly can't say I liked any of them over the original actors. Even Mia Farrow.
The film is also very well shot. It looked like a real deal movie and you could see a real budget behind it, which is always good, especially in the often ultra-cheap horror genre.
That's about all the good I have. The movie moves very slowly and all the big moments felt forced and didn't have the natural feeling of the original, especially the very end. They really botched the editing of the big church scene. It's confusing, the pace is bizarre and not in a good way. Considering it's the culmination of the whole damned thing you think they might have spent a little more time making it as powerful as it should have been. Then there's the infamous epilogue from the original, which turned out to be a happy accident if you listen to Donner's commentary track (which is very good, by the way. He's very funny on it... one of my favorite commentaries). Now it just comes off as forced and doesn't have the zing that the original's did.
The few big gore moments are well done, but it all comes off as a rip-off of FINAL DESTINATION, which of course took it's fair share from the idea of the photographer seeing hints of how people were going to die in the pictures he takes, but the whole execution of these sequences are like mini-FINAL DESTINATION moments. One dude dragging a slab that removes a truck brake that sends it going down the hill, etc. I didn't like that very much. I would have hoped they would have shot these in a way that'd visually distance them from the cheesier FINAL DESTINATION flicks.
Worse of all, the film gets dull. Everything is pretty much step by step the original and when it isn't, it feels like filler, much like the added death at the beginning of Robert Thorne's boss. There is one exception, though, and that was a scene between Mia Farrow and Julia Stiles in the hospital. You'll know it when you see it. It'll be the thing that isn't boring you in the last act of the movie.
And I'm not even going to mention this movie's version of the "monkey" sequence. Not at all. I can't bring myself to think about those CONGO ape costumes again. So poorly executed... And let me go on record as saying Jerry Goldsmith's score is greatly missed... the little hints that are in the film, especially over the end credits only make the rest of the score stand out as being completely bland.
So, count me decidedly mixed-negative. It wasn't painfully bad, but it was a far stretch from good. Rent the original. You'll have a better time.
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
