...like a heartless cover band playing The Omen's greatest hits just to get out of their bar tab
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Finally, a film for everyone who was sitting around their house thinking, "Man, the original ´Omen´ from 1976 was great, it was genuinely atmospheric, used unique camera tricks, starred the impeccable Gregory Peck opposite the creepiest child this side of ´Village of the Dammed,´ featured an Oscar-winning score from Jerry Goldsmith, and asked viewers truly to question their faith in an arcane religion. I sure wish somebody would remake ´The Omen´ but update it for the MTV generation, taking out the suspense, eliminating the examination of religious hyperbole, and, if possible, casting somebody as Damien's mother that would make every second she was on-screen seem like hours, but if Sandra Bullock wasn't available, perhaps they could get Julia Stiles."
Why do all the great horror films keep getting remade? "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "The Hills Have Eyes," "Dawn of the Dead," the list just keeps growing. No other genre gets this backhanded compliment; it's not like Guy Ritchie's going to reimagine "Platoon." Why not have McG involved in the "Revenge of the Nerds" remake? What's that? They are…he is…for real, sigh. Well, here's a better idea: Why not remake films that had great concepts but were poorly executed? Let's get a remake of "Popcorn" or "Dr. Giggles" started, or how about "Cool World" with Guillermo del Toro? Or a retry at Van Helsing without Stephen Sommers' inept involvement; even Uwe Boll could have done a better job with that one. I'll wrap this tangent up with one simple phrase that I wish to see become a mantra: "Enough with the remakes already!"
For the few unfortunate souls unfamiliar with the original 1976 "Omen," a movie that became a worldwide phenomenon, causing the name "Damien" to be relegated to the abyss of titles no longer used (it's where names like Adolf and Helen went to die), here's the plot in a nutshell. On a night filled with the number 6, a U.S. ambassador´s wife (Julia Stiles) has a stillborn child. Unbeknownst to her, the husband (Live Schreiber) replaces said child with a newborn whose mother died in childbirth, and they name him Damien. Approximately five years later, troubling events begin occurring around their son with alarming and deadly results for all that are close to him. Damien's "father" teams up with a local British photographer (David Thewlis) and Roman Catholic priest (Pete Postlethwaite) to try and stop the rise of the antichrist. If you've got a religiously themed problem and no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire…The O Team.
While both the original "Omen" and the remake share the same writer, David Seltzer, he had little to do with the brilliance of the 1976 version. Seltzer, responsible for scripts like "Bird on a Wire" and "My Giant," is often regarded as a hack, especially by those unfortunate enough to have come across his original "Omen" script before director Richard Donner took out the silly, cloven-hoofed Satanists and basically classed it up significantly. This flashy, but ultimately boring, remake is helmed by John Moore, director of such forgettable films as "Behind Enemy Lines" and "Flight of the Phoenix." "The Omen" was the second remake of a Donner classic to arrive in 2006, proving that even with someone as iconic as Damien or the Man of Steel, you still need a great director to make a great movie; otherwise, you end up with poorly visualized claptrap like "Superman Returns."
As boring and unimaginative as Moore's "Omen" is, it does have a few minor things going for it. While no Gregory Peck, going with the underutilized Liev Schreiber was a stroke of genius. Schreiber has proved himself to be not only a great character actor but also a deft screenwriter/director for his take on Jonathan Safran Foer's novel "Everything Is Illuminated"; it's great to see him finally get a chance to carry a feature film. But as charming and enthralling as Schreiber's Robert Thorn is, he can't fight the weight of Seltzer's heavy-handed, unimaginative script or Moore's paint-by-the-numbers direction. Even the use of Pete Postlethwaite as Father Brennan feels like little more than an afterthought, which is a shame since Postlethwaite is an actor of depth and deserves to be treated better than a Patrick Troughton stand-in.
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[release]19584[/release]