Who's a good doggy? Whooooo's a good doggy?
Ahem. Excuse me.
So, uh, I watched The Omen remake on friday night, and I'm just now getting a chance to post about it. I don't know why I'm posting about it, just like I don't know why I watched it: I didn't like the first one, to be perfectly honest, and I loathe remakes in general, but yet, I not only watched this, I ordered it on Pay-Per-View, which means at some point, I'm going to have to pay for it. "Pay for it", in the monetary sense, not in the cosmic sense-I started paying for it cosmically as soon as the movie started.
This movie is not good.
I think everyone knows the plot, but just in case: Ambassador's wife is expecting a child. Child dies shortly after birth. Super-nice hospital replaces baby with Folger's Crystals product of Jackal/Satan union:Let's see if anyone notices!
The movie starts out with a lot of hoo-haa about 9/11, the Columbia disaster, and the Indian Ocean Tsunami, and after witnessing that display, I KNEW this movie was going to suck, the only question was, was it going to iredeemably suck, or would it suck so bad, that it ends up being good?
The cast was so-so, and at various points throughout the movie, almost everyone did some less than stellar acting (the only one who didn't suck any, was David Thewlis, as the photographer who ends up helping Mr. Ambassador find out how best to instigate a late, late, late, late, LATE term abortion). The deaths were pretty much the same as in the first movie (including my favorite: guy-impaled-by-a-spire), so nothing new and interesting there.
The main problem, is that, what was supposed to be scary, wasn't. See that hell hound in the pic above? Does he look particularly frightening to you? I wanna play ball with him, and rub his tummy-not exactly a normal response to fear. Mia Farrow, as the nanny brought in to replace the LAST nanny (you know the one I mean-she's in this one, too), and who is really, really, REALLY protective of Damien, just seemed very Mia Farrow-ish: I kept thinking that she should just adopt Damien, and she and he, and the hell hound, and all of her other 289 kids could live together in harmony, and they could quit pestering Mr. and Mrs. Ambassador. Not scary.
I'd say that the least scary thing in the entire movie, was Damien. The kid who played him, he did well enough, but as the role was written, he seemed more like a kid with some form of autism than the son of satan. He really didn't talk, or DO anything, other than just behave in an annoying manner, ie: throwing a fit on the way to church, zoning out while playing video games, ignoring his mother (If your kid ever ignores you-EVIL!), and just generally acting like a little shit. Of course, in this one, like the original, he DOES knock his mom over the second-story railing-that's a little evil, but honestly, at that point I was so thankful for ANYTHING that would shut Julia Stiles up, for even a little while, that I looked at it as an act of heroism.
To the question of "How bad does it suck?". Oh, it's pretty stanky, but if you're ever heard me wax poetic about Reefer Madness, you'd know that I enjoy films that are crappy on a grand scale: they're like high comedy to me, and I laughed quite a few times during The Omen. Plus, it's not a boring movie, which to me, at least, is the true litmus of a film's suckitude: it's what separates the "Manos: the Hands of Fate"s from the "Plan 9 From Outer Space"s-one is bad and horrendously boring, and the other is bad and FABULOUS. It's a fine line, I suppose.
So, to sum up: if you want a movie that will make you laugh your ass off, give the Omen remake a chance. If you want something scary, look elsewhere.
2 hours ago
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