| Overall Grade: |
C |
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| Story: |
C+ |
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| Acting: |
B- |
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| Direction: |
C |
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| Visuals: |
C+ |
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Pointless Remake of a Mediocre Film
by JimF (movies profile)
Oct 17, 2006
10
of
11 people found this review helpful
Is Hollywood that desperate?
This remake of the 1976 film by the same name is almost identical in every way, with a few minor changes. The original version of The Omen, directed by Richard Donner and starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remmick, was kind of step sibling to the far superior The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby which were released a few years earlier. It was entertaining, and better crafted than say, Beyond The Door, which had come out around the same time.
In this version, the couple raising Satan's spawn, played by Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles, are considerably younger than Peck and Remmick were in the original version. In order to add some credibility to explain how one so young (Schreibner is only 39) could earn a post as ambassador to United Kindom, David Selltzer, who scripted both screenplays, introduces an early plot element that allows Schreiber's character to be promptly promoted from a deputy position in the Department of State to full diplomat status.
The evil nanny in the remake, in this version (Mia Farrow) is far less creepie in appearance-- (in fact she's kind of hot) than Billie Whitelaw's portrayal in the original. Was Farrow selected because audiences would subliminally remember her as the doomed mother in the aforementioned Rosemary's Baby?
David Thewlis as photographer Keith Jennings is slightly less smarmy than David Warner's portrayal, and the showing of his fate is far more graphic than in the original. Contrastly, another major character expires in a bit more humane fashion.
Other than these touches, this remake is pretty much the same movie-- almost shot-by-shot. Even the young boy who plays Damien has the same monoexpression as the original.
Why did the producers of this latest "The Omen" even bother to re-make it? Maybe the only answer is: the devil made them do it. |
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