Like most of the horror loving community, the news that British classic The Omen was to suffer an Americanised remake wasn't welcome, but I figured I'd give it a fair chance anyway. As usual with remakes, I now wish I hadn't as all this film does is remind me of how good the original is. Indeed, there is nothing that the remake has over the original and all it is offers is a tired retelling of a very good story. The plot hasn't been changed, but the film does offer some new ideas, all of which are misplaced and don't work well - bringing the two towers into it being a case in point. Anyway, the plot focuses on Robert Thorn, the British ambassador and a man who unwittingly takes on the Devil's child after his own died at birth. A few odd events later and Thorn becomes convinced by various parties that Damien is the devil's spawn and so sets off to get some daggers to kill him with.
The cast is one of the most annoying things about this remake. Liev Schreiber is a poor successor to the brilliant Gregory Peck, while the likes of Julia Stiles, Mia Farrow Michael Gambon and Pete Postlethwaite all fail to impress in their respective roles. The kid that they've got to play Damien isn't menacing at all, and this is a huge dent in the film as this is an important role that the audience must believe is the root of all evil. The film has none of the atmosphere of the original, and the glossy cinematography does the plot line no favours. The over the top death scenes were a big part of the 1976 classic, but here they suffer from the same problem as the rest of the film - that being the fact that they're well known now and so don't have the power that they did in the original. A lot of the people that see this won't have seen the original, but for those of us that have watching this remake is an excruciating waste of time. The original Omen received a couple of pretty terrible sequels, but not one of them (not even Omen IV) are even half as bad as this crappy effort. Overall, I can't recommend this film to anyone - fans of the original will hate it for not living up to the standard, and those that haven't seen the original will hate it because it's just so poor. Don't bother, is my advice to everyone.
The cast is one of the most annoying things about this remake. Liev Schreiber is a poor successor to the brilliant Gregory Peck, while the likes of Julia Stiles, Mia Farrow Michael Gambon and Pete Postlethwaite all fail to impress in their respective roles. The kid that they've got to play Damien isn't menacing at all, and this is a huge dent in the film as this is an important role that the audience must believe is the root of all evil. The film has none of the atmosphere of the original, and the glossy cinematography does the plot line no favours. The over the top death scenes were a big part of the 1976 classic, but here they suffer from the same problem as the rest of the film - that being the fact that they're well known now and so don't have the power that they did in the original. A lot of the people that see this won't have seen the original, but for those of us that have watching this remake is an excruciating waste of time. The original Omen received a couple of pretty terrible sequels, but not one of them (not even Omen IV) are even half as bad as this crappy effort. Overall, I can't recommend this film to anyone - fans of the original will hate it for not living up to the standard, and those that haven't seen the original will hate it because it's just so poor. Don't bother, is my advice to everyone.