When a group of movie execs decide to do a remake of a classic they are looking at the bottom line. Releasing Omen on the 6th day, of the 6th month in the 6th year was just the push they needed to put on this project. What a mistake.
No sensible producer would ever remake Casablanca or Gone with The Wind. Both of these classics are scene after scene perfect. Likewise, the original Omen film was so polished that it was difficult to see how they could improve things. Do you follow the book and film closely or do a different take? Unfortunately all too often with this film they choose the frame by frame imitation, and each was a pale imitation of the original.
Take the dramatic scene where Damien cycles around eventually bumping his mum over the banister. In the original the sound track was genius, it built the momentum and climaxed perfectly. In this tawdry remake there was no mood build up, no tension. The score, as throughout the rest of the film, was limp.
The writer tried too hard to match real modern events with the apocalyptic apocrypha, but as they were out of synch they would have been better left out. The writing would have been just as entertaining, if not more so, if events were invented to match with the book of Revelation's predications; suggestions that the sea in Revelation 8 somehow refers to politics is just plain stupid.
The cast was a troop of misfits. Julia Styles was wooden and Liev Schreiber always looked out of place; whilst Lee Remick and Gregory Peck are always going to be impossible to beat, these two TV quality stars were never going to be in the same league. I felt sorry for the real actors, the three British thespians normally found in better productions; Michael Gambon, Pete Postlethwaite and David Thewlis. David Thewlis struggled throughout to make his part worthy, but was constantly fighting against the cardboard cut-out of Schreiber that was always by his side. Michael Gambon looked apologetic for taking his bit part; he looked almost embarrassed in his scenes.
To conclude, a poorly executed film aimed to tie in with a single day. It would have been better to have kept this project as a TV movie.
No sensible producer would ever remake Casablanca or Gone with The Wind. Both of these classics are scene after scene perfect. Likewise, the original Omen film was so polished that it was difficult to see how they could improve things. Do you follow the book and film closely or do a different take? Unfortunately all too often with this film they choose the frame by frame imitation, and each was a pale imitation of the original.
Take the dramatic scene where Damien cycles around eventually bumping his mum over the banister. In the original the sound track was genius, it built the momentum and climaxed perfectly. In this tawdry remake there was no mood build up, no tension. The score, as throughout the rest of the film, was limp.
The writer tried too hard to match real modern events with the apocalyptic apocrypha, but as they were out of synch they would have been better left out. The writing would have been just as entertaining, if not more so, if events were invented to match with the book of Revelation's predications; suggestions that the sea in Revelation 8 somehow refers to politics is just plain stupid.
The cast was a troop of misfits. Julia Styles was wooden and Liev Schreiber always looked out of place; whilst Lee Remick and Gregory Peck are always going to be impossible to beat, these two TV quality stars were never going to be in the same league. I felt sorry for the real actors, the three British thespians normally found in better productions; Michael Gambon, Pete Postlethwaite and David Thewlis. David Thewlis struggled throughout to make his part worthy, but was constantly fighting against the cardboard cut-out of Schreiber that was always by his side. Michael Gambon looked apologetic for taking his bit part; he looked almost embarrassed in his scenes.
To conclude, a poorly executed film aimed to tie in with a single day. It would have been better to have kept this project as a TV movie.