"The Omen" Movie Review

It's true that hindsight is 20/20, but can it really be so difficult to see what made a good, original movie succeed when a remake is being considered? Apparently it is, as the vastly talented Tim Burton proved with his disasterously inferior version of The Planet of the Apes.

Director John Moore has presented a new version of The Omen that is almost slavishly faithful to most of the particulars from the original, yet it badly miscalculates every time it strays.

The story of The Omen was first told in 1976, during the first wave of pop culture predictions about the 'End Times' coming to pass, and three years after the phenomenal success of The Exorcist. Its director, Richard Donner, was making his transition from a very long and successful career directing episodic television, and would soon go on to direct Superman, Ladyhawke and Lethal Weapon among many more feature films.

The Omen tells the tale of Robert Thorn, a career diplomat with family connections that place him and his potential progeny in contention for the U.S. presidency. Thorn accepts a newborn child as a surrogate son to replace his own, whom he believes died in childbirth, a secret which he withholds from his wife. As the child Damien grows, the suspicion that he is a source of darkness and death becomes inescapable. Various outsiders begin to contact Thorn with increasingly certain evidence that his adopted son is the Antichrist of Biblical prophesy. The father must make the final decision as to whether or not to kill the child, a decision that creates a suspenseful and chilling climax.

The original Omen is particularly remembered for its freakish and shocking death scenes, in which forces of nature caused various objects to impale or behead their victims as if Satan himself were improvising ghastly mousetraps. These are presented anew, perhaps too predictably, but with enough of a new, gruesome twist on each to make them memorable on their own.

Foremost of the 2006 Omen's failures is its cast. In 1976, Gregory Peck and Lee Remick were Hollywood royalty, whose stature as actors befitted their roles as political royalty in the nature of the Kennedys. In their place, the new film offers Liev Schreiber, heretofore a career co-star, and Julia Stiles, a still young and maturing actress. John Moore has said that he cast Schreiber in the role because it required an intelligent actor. Unfortunately, what the role needs more than intelligence is passion and charisma, two things that Schreiber seems incapable of offering. He and Stiles have no chemistry as lovers and lack the maturity to suggest a Clintonesque political partnership. In addition, for every bit that Schreiber is wooden in his characterization, his co-stars are laughably melodramatic and over-the-top to the point that they seem to be in two different movies.

As Damien, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick nails 'the look.' Even in photographs, his cold stare is palpably suggestive of evil incarnate. Sadly, he's a one trick pony, speaking hardly a word in the entire film, but glowering incessantly. By the time the final confrontation takes place between good, evil and those caught in between (with laser-scoped commandoes inexplicably appearing from nowhere), this telling of The Omen feels coldly mechanical, like the springing of a mousetrap that snaps shut on thin air.