The Omen (2006)

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Summary:
Damien is the sweet young son of US Ambassador Robert Thorn and his wife. On his sixth birthday, wierd shit starts going down with their young boy. Supposedly, Damien is the son of Satan, and as more time passes, wierder shit starts to go down.

Review:
Another remake. OK, so there are very few remakes worthy of being made. This isn't one of them. It's better than a handful of other remakes, but gimme a break guys; the original does NOT need to be touched!! It's almost the exact same as Donner's 1976 classic, but without as solid or convincing of a cast, and the originality factor goes out the window considering that it's a COPY of the first version, not a REMAKE.

It's a slick looking movie, and for $60 million, it better look fucking good. At the same time, everything seemed to just echo what had been done in the original. The house exterior/interiors, almost every location they go to mirrors the first one. Liev Schreiber was rather good as Damien's father, but he can't hold a candle to the dominating presence and sheer surprise of having Gregory Peck in a movie about a devil boy. The same kills as before reside in this version, but the beheading scene was very cleverly done. On the other hand, the original's beheading also rocked like a fucking mofo.
Whenever something drifted into the realm of originality this time around, it typically had to do with dream sequences that warrant a really cheap fucking scare. A POSSITIVE is that the incorporation of current situations politically juxtaposed with the book of Revelations was nicely fused. Once again, the 1976 version ORIGINATED THIS CONCEPT, so why the fuck should I be too impressed with it? It's like making an update in an encyclopedia from the year before; the work has been completed, you're just updating the current facts. Whoopedy doo. The most intriguing element to this update on "The End of the World" is how the Bible can be translated and adjusted to fit with the times, no matter WHAT time in history we're in. That's both scary and enlightening at the same time. I hate thinking about all the verbatim quotes taken straight from the original. Yuck.
There are also two significant problems detracting from my investment in these characters. The first part is that Damien is a fucked up kid from the first moment we meet him. I never felt that he was 'normal', whereas in the original it seemed like he was an alright kid, but then the more we watch the movie, the more we start to wonder. This time, I'm not thinking he's sane from frame one. This doesn't help with the creepiness factor like it should.
The relationship between Stiles and Schreiber is passable, but neither one connected as much as Peck and Remick. I CARED for these two much more the first time around. As for Stiles, she did nothing for me emotionally, but I give credit to Schreiber for some moments of convincing emotional distress. He was pretty convincing; still, he's no Gregory Peck! David Thewlis came out looking the best as the photographer who leads David on a journey for truth. He didn't have as big of a pair of shoes to fill as the others, and he also might have even IMPROVED upon David Warner. Mia Farrow also kicked some ass, but she's hardly in the movie, so that's a damned shame.
One of the best elements to the original was also the music score. Jerry Goldsmith drummed up a devilish theme, with chanting and freaky deaky shit. The score this time is passable, but once again, falls short of The Source.
This is the problem with our new rendition of The Omen. First, there is no NEED for a fucking remake - PERIOD! Secondly, there is not enough done with this movie to warrant a remake, seeing as how it's basically just a reshoot, but with an inferior cast and score. They seemed to make virtually no effort in turning this beast into its' own living, breathing creature, and instead have provided a cheap generic knock-off.

So, what does this movie have that warrants its' existence? Nothing, I say! Nothing! I say enough about remakes whenever I review a remake, but it's especially insulting redux-ing the absolute classic that is The Omen. Sometimes a remake may just be a good thing, but from the moment of its' inception, The Omen was doomed to fail. If you haven't seen the 1976 version, then this movie will be better than for those who have already watched the BETTER version.

GRADE: D+

Reviewed: 7/01/06