There are no surprises for anyone who's seen the earlier version, and younger horror fans may find the modest body count and restrained gore unsatisfying.
The Omen (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:158
Fresh:41
Rotten:117
Average Rating:4.6/10
Consensus: Even with the force of a "classic" behind it, remake fever can't hold up the hollowness of this style-drenched Omen.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for disturbing violent content, graphic images and some language
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Theatrical Release:Jun 6, 2006 Wide
Box Office: $54,484,565
Synopsis: Many believe the prophecy from the Book of Revelation provides a map to a terrifying future…or it presents fragments of history that have come to life in our time. The signs, they claim, are all... Many believe the prophecy from the Book of Revelation provides a map to a terrifying future…or it presents fragments of history that have come to life in our time. The signs, they claim, are all around us: terrorist attacks, extreme weather… the list goes on. The passage specifically points to the arrival of the Anti-Christ, who is branded with the numerical sequence “666”: the mark of the Beast. The Anti-Christ will receive his power directly from Satan to establish a counterfeit kingdom on earth, signaling the beginning of Armageddon… Robert Thorn is unaware of such dark prophecies. Thorn, a senior American diplomat, has other things on his mind. His wife, Katherine, has endured a difficult delivery and she’s as yet unaware their newborn child has died. Devastated by the loss, Thorn’s concern turns to Katherine, who had suffered two previous miscarriages. The news will surely devastate her. The hospital priest, Father Spiletto, presents Thorn with another child born that night, whose mother died in childbirth. The priest compels Thorn to take the infant boy as his own; Katherine will never know the truth, and their son, which they name Damien, will be raised as their flesh and blood. Katherine embraces the child as her own, blossoming in motherhood; Thorn, it would seem, has made the right choice. Thorn’s career ascends – he becomes the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain – and the family settles into an estate outside London. But certain events, all seeming to revolve around the now five-year-old Damien, are deeply disturbing: Damien’s nanny hangs herself at the youngster’s birthday party; a strange priest brings dire warnings to Thorn; a children’s trip to the zoo results in a panicked frenzy; Damien becomes hysterical during a drive to church; and blurred movements in a series of photographs portend shocking deaths. The troubling incidents multiply, pointing to something wrong – terribly wrong – with Damien. Enter Mrs. Baylock, Damien’s new nanny, who seems to have a preordained devotion to the child. Then tragedy strikes closer to home. But only later does Thorn comprehend the truth: Damien is no ordinary child; he is the long-prophesized Anti-Christ. Now, Thorn must make the ultimate sacrifice to prevent the unspeakable terror that awaits the world. The prophecy is clear, the signs unmistakable: Armageddon is upon us. On 6 / 6 / 06, the omen is revealed...and our darkest fears are realized. -- © 20th Century Fox [More]
Starring: Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, Mia Farrow
Starring: Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, Mia Farrow, Josh Hutcherson, David Thewlis, Pete Postlethwaite
Director: John Moore
Director: John Moore
Screenwriter: Dan McDermott
Composer: Marco Beltrami
Studio: 20th Century Fox
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Release:
Mar 11, 2008
Reviews for The Omen
If the opening-date driven re-make of The Omen succeeds in tapping into any fears of the existence of evil in the world, these will be most acutely felt when you realize that Satan, the old showbiz devil, has picked your pocket once again.
Wanna know a bad omen for a horror movie? When it spends an hour or more trying to decide what kind of horror movie it's going to be.
[Thirty] years ago, you didn't hear a lot of mainstream references to the Antichrist, but now it's a routine epithet. It's the curse of the original, which became a huge part of the pop-culture lexicon. Not accounting for that is a fatal error.
The revisited Omen is neither very scary nor much fun in a movie-movie sense.
Schreiber seems to wander through the film like Hamlet's ghost, waiting for his soliloquy to come, and it never does. He's kind of a cold fish, and Stiles isn't much better.
It's hard to imagine college age movie goers being attracted by such a passé premise. And fans of the original will end up doing shot-by-shot comparisons. On every level, The Omen isn't just bad filmmaking, it's bad storytelling.
Transplanting so much of the original story to a 21st-century setting only amplifies how badly the story has aged.
While it's not exactly a horror, it's still a long way from a great horror film.
I say rent the original. It tells exactly the same story, with a better cast and with special effects that are as good or better.
Moore delivers several powerful jolts, stocking the film with potent jump-scares, pacing its two-hour length tightly and bottling the tension that escalates with each new act of satanic cruelty.
Take the numbers 06-06-06 and calculate them according to the rituals of ancient mystical prophecy, and what do you get? Zilch.
The Omen retains the aura of ceremonious kitsch of the first movie, favoring a well-lighted, upscale Goth aesthetic punctuated with flashes of well-timed, cymbal-crashing shockers and giggly camp.
The original Omen spawned two sequels. This lifeless remake guarantees we'll be spared the run-up to Armageddon.
A slavishly literal remake of the satanic-horror standby that elicits laughter, sleep and occasional eye-popped shock but drums up scant real terror.
Compared to Al Gore's new global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, The Omen makes the Apocalypse look comforting and child-friendly.
It's still an involving story. And the film's well-acted, particularly by Ms. Farrow and Mr. Postlethwaite. Plus, there are two really good scares that'll make you jump out of your seat. That alone was entertaining.
You can file the remake of The Omen under 'Unnecessary.' With a cross-reference to 'Uninspired.'
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