Post by Bartwald on Jun 9, 2006 12:44:12 GMT -5
THE OMEN (REMAKE)
USA, 2006
Directed by John Moore
Starring: Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, David Thewlis, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, Mia Farrow, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Pete Postlethwaite, Michael Gambon
Grade: 6/10
Unlike most popular remakes of recent years (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn Of The Dead, to mention the best ones), the new Omen doesn’t much differ from the original. The special effects have been modernized, the leading couple got younger, a new introduction was added and several scenes have been mildly changed – apart from this we are getting a carbon copy of Richard Donner’s classic horror. Is that a good thing or a bad thing that the makers didn’t dare changing the old screenplay a bit more? The answer is right there in the very first scene of the film.
The new beginning is utterly terrible and proves that the decision to not change much else in the further parts of the film was only reasonable. If the remake was made of novelties similar to this introduction, the whole affair would be totally unbearable. Here is what Dan McDermott, the new screenwriter (unbilled in the titles), is trying to superglue to the classic Omen: a Vatican cardinal, terrified by a new discovery, is going to inform the Pope and other high-ranked priests that the Time of the Devil’s Child has finally come. How does he know that? Why, he spotted something similar to a travesty of the star of Betlehem in the sky. What are some other proofs for the coming of the little Satan? You guessed this: wars, terrorist attacks, floods… So there we are, observing the Pope (looking slightly like John Paul II) who is watching the cardinal’s slideshow in utter terror – here’s World Trade Center in ruins, there’s the destruction of New Orleans and so on. You can tell the Pope is seeing all this for the first time in his life and after taking a look at several such photos, he waves his tired hand: “That’s enough”. Really – who needs yet more proof that the Devil is about to invade the world? After all, things ain’t looking peaceful, are they?
Things have never been looking peaceful and trying to convince us that the hurricane Katrina is a sign of Satan’s coming is downright stupid. Showing the Pope as a person who’s got to be updated on the recent news with a handy slideshow is not exactly genius, either. Thanks to this little intro one can easily see that the screenwriter and the director and the producers are all lacking imagination and have no idea where to stop in their attempts to fool the viewers. Greenlighting such a naïve and unnecessary scene is a mistake that will be difficult to shake off before the end credits start rolling but thankfully this Omen never again reaches such lows. From this moment on, instead of being forced to believe that „all signs on Heavens and Earth show the upcoming Apocalypse” we can observe a small, much more convincing Apocalypse within one American family.
A child of a young diplomat Robert Thorn dies at birth. The man is shocked but all he can think of is his wife – she almost died there, too, and having a child was her greatest dream, almost an obsession. While talking to a priest who was looking after Katherine, Robert finds out she won’t be able to conceive any more children. The same priest tells the shattered young man that at the same time when his child died a woman died while giving birth to a healthy son. There’s no family to give the newborn child to. Wouldn’t that be great if Robert took care of the child? The wife doesn’t have to know about any of this, does she?
A couple of years later Robert and Katherine are living in England. He is “the youngest US ambassador in history” and she is slowly losing her mind. There’s something wrong with the little Damien boy: there are daggers in his eyes when he looks at his mother, he’s driving her crazy with small acts of viciousness, he’s never playing with other children, animals at the zoo are terrified of him and his nanny commits gruesome suicide – with a smile on her face, screaming “It’s for you, Damien!” Katherine goes as far as to start suspecting he’s not her real son. Believing that the woman’s state of mind is put down to tiredness, the Thorns decide on hiring a new nanny. They choose a sweet but firm Mrs. Baylock – very delicate judging from her looks, but stopping at nothing in order to guard Damien and make it easy for Stan to succeed with his plan. Robert, an intelligent and down-to-earth man, will have to question everything he believed in so far and in the fight for his own and his wife’s life he will have to face the powers of Hell. His personal guide will be Keith Jennings, a journalist who strongly believes that there some of Robert’s acquaintances are about to die – and he’s got photos to prove it.
The director John Moore (Behind The Enemy Lines, Flight Of The Phoenix) wanted to provide the old Omen with a modern spin and, apart from the disastrous intro, he succeeded rather well. The special effects are impressive (even the famous beheading gets an inventive and shocking treatment), the soundtrack nicely regulates the level of adrenaline in the viewers’ bodies (even though it’s not as good as Goldsmith’s classic score), and the lively photography by Jonathan Sela helps to get into the tale being told. The lack of Gregory Peck is one of the new film’s greatest disadvantages but it would be unfair to say that Liev Schreiber couldn’t cope with the main role – he’s a talented actor and he does manage to squeeze a tear or a chill out of the viewers but the fans of the original will be constantly comparing what he’s doing here with Peck’s much more emotional performance. Julia Stiles, even though her beauty gets more and more controversial each day, is also quite convincing as the ambassador’s wife – it’s easy to believe her increasing uneasiness when dealing with Damien and the hospital scene where she’s playing against Mia Farrow is a heartbreaker. However, the most precious asset of the new version are the supporting characters: Mia Farrow, at the same time sweeter and crazier than in Rosemary’s Baby, is mesmerising as the boy’s nanny; Giovanni Lombardo Radice, a veteran of Italian horror known from City Of The Living Dead, Stage Fright or The Church, is playing the diabolic Father Spiletto and manages to fill the screen with the purest dread (especially in a tense, very well-measured scene where he’s uncovering his melted face before the eyes of Thorn and Jennings), and Pete Postlethwaite, here – Father Brennan who tries to warn Robert against the danger, is perhaps a bit over-the-top but even his role is to be remembered fondly. And finally there’s little Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick – having perfect looks for the role of the Devil’s Son but doing not much else except for looking at us with one well-practised, haunted stare.
All in all – a good remake, but perhaps best for those unlucky fellows who either haven’t seen or don’t remember the original and won’t miss the presence of Peck or Goldsmith’s Ave Satani. On the other hand, those who can be convinced that the Vatican looks for the Antichrist using a bunch of slides – well, they may as well end up truly loving this newer, fresher, quicker Omen.
USA, 2006
Directed by John Moore
Starring: Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, David Thewlis, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, Mia Farrow, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Pete Postlethwaite, Michael Gambon
Grade: 6/10
Unlike most popular remakes of recent years (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn Of The Dead, to mention the best ones), the new Omen doesn’t much differ from the original. The special effects have been modernized, the leading couple got younger, a new introduction was added and several scenes have been mildly changed – apart from this we are getting a carbon copy of Richard Donner’s classic horror. Is that a good thing or a bad thing that the makers didn’t dare changing the old screenplay a bit more? The answer is right there in the very first scene of the film.
The new beginning is utterly terrible and proves that the decision to not change much else in the further parts of the film was only reasonable. If the remake was made of novelties similar to this introduction, the whole affair would be totally unbearable. Here is what Dan McDermott, the new screenwriter (unbilled in the titles), is trying to superglue to the classic Omen: a Vatican cardinal, terrified by a new discovery, is going to inform the Pope and other high-ranked priests that the Time of the Devil’s Child has finally come. How does he know that? Why, he spotted something similar to a travesty of the star of Betlehem in the sky. What are some other proofs for the coming of the little Satan? You guessed this: wars, terrorist attacks, floods… So there we are, observing the Pope (looking slightly like John Paul II) who is watching the cardinal’s slideshow in utter terror – here’s World Trade Center in ruins, there’s the destruction of New Orleans and so on. You can tell the Pope is seeing all this for the first time in his life and after taking a look at several such photos, he waves his tired hand: “That’s enough”. Really – who needs yet more proof that the Devil is about to invade the world? After all, things ain’t looking peaceful, are they?
Things have never been looking peaceful and trying to convince us that the hurricane Katrina is a sign of Satan’s coming is downright stupid. Showing the Pope as a person who’s got to be updated on the recent news with a handy slideshow is not exactly genius, either. Thanks to this little intro one can easily see that the screenwriter and the director and the producers are all lacking imagination and have no idea where to stop in their attempts to fool the viewers. Greenlighting such a naïve and unnecessary scene is a mistake that will be difficult to shake off before the end credits start rolling but thankfully this Omen never again reaches such lows. From this moment on, instead of being forced to believe that „all signs on Heavens and Earth show the upcoming Apocalypse” we can observe a small, much more convincing Apocalypse within one American family.
A child of a young diplomat Robert Thorn dies at birth. The man is shocked but all he can think of is his wife – she almost died there, too, and having a child was her greatest dream, almost an obsession. While talking to a priest who was looking after Katherine, Robert finds out she won’t be able to conceive any more children. The same priest tells the shattered young man that at the same time when his child died a woman died while giving birth to a healthy son. There’s no family to give the newborn child to. Wouldn’t that be great if Robert took care of the child? The wife doesn’t have to know about any of this, does she?
A couple of years later Robert and Katherine are living in England. He is “the youngest US ambassador in history” and she is slowly losing her mind. There’s something wrong with the little Damien boy: there are daggers in his eyes when he looks at his mother, he’s driving her crazy with small acts of viciousness, he’s never playing with other children, animals at the zoo are terrified of him and his nanny commits gruesome suicide – with a smile on her face, screaming “It’s for you, Damien!” Katherine goes as far as to start suspecting he’s not her real son. Believing that the woman’s state of mind is put down to tiredness, the Thorns decide on hiring a new nanny. They choose a sweet but firm Mrs. Baylock – very delicate judging from her looks, but stopping at nothing in order to guard Damien and make it easy for Stan to succeed with his plan. Robert, an intelligent and down-to-earth man, will have to question everything he believed in so far and in the fight for his own and his wife’s life he will have to face the powers of Hell. His personal guide will be Keith Jennings, a journalist who strongly believes that there some of Robert’s acquaintances are about to die – and he’s got photos to prove it.
The director John Moore (Behind The Enemy Lines, Flight Of The Phoenix) wanted to provide the old Omen with a modern spin and, apart from the disastrous intro, he succeeded rather well. The special effects are impressive (even the famous beheading gets an inventive and shocking treatment), the soundtrack nicely regulates the level of adrenaline in the viewers’ bodies (even though it’s not as good as Goldsmith’s classic score), and the lively photography by Jonathan Sela helps to get into the tale being told. The lack of Gregory Peck is one of the new film’s greatest disadvantages but it would be unfair to say that Liev Schreiber couldn’t cope with the main role – he’s a talented actor and he does manage to squeeze a tear or a chill out of the viewers but the fans of the original will be constantly comparing what he’s doing here with Peck’s much more emotional performance. Julia Stiles, even though her beauty gets more and more controversial each day, is also quite convincing as the ambassador’s wife – it’s easy to believe her increasing uneasiness when dealing with Damien and the hospital scene where she’s playing against Mia Farrow is a heartbreaker. However, the most precious asset of the new version are the supporting characters: Mia Farrow, at the same time sweeter and crazier than in Rosemary’s Baby, is mesmerising as the boy’s nanny; Giovanni Lombardo Radice, a veteran of Italian horror known from City Of The Living Dead, Stage Fright or The Church, is playing the diabolic Father Spiletto and manages to fill the screen with the purest dread (especially in a tense, very well-measured scene where he’s uncovering his melted face before the eyes of Thorn and Jennings), and Pete Postlethwaite, here – Father Brennan who tries to warn Robert against the danger, is perhaps a bit over-the-top but even his role is to be remembered fondly. And finally there’s little Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick – having perfect looks for the role of the Devil’s Son but doing not much else except for looking at us with one well-practised, haunted stare.
All in all – a good remake, but perhaps best for those unlucky fellows who either haven’t seen or don’t remember the original and won’t miss the presence of Peck or Goldsmith’s Ave Satani. On the other hand, those who can be convinced that the Vatican looks for the Antichrist using a bunch of slides – well, they may as well end up truly loving this newer, fresher, quicker Omen.
