The Omen (2006)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

best movie i've ever seen.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

First of all, I haven't watched the original movie yet (The Omen 1976) so I am not regarding this as a remake, but just like everyone is saying, it was a bad remake, welp, to me, it's a bad "movie". And without its being a remake, I don't get it, there is nothing special about this movie, and it feels like it's trying to get you somewhere but then fails and strays from the road. Aside from a very few good moments, this is absolutely nonsense. I had high hopes, because of the title, and the opening, and most importantly, how people praise the original movie which I will definitely watch. I don't think this is the movie that my cousin had recommended to me, he must've meant the 76' one.3.5/10

I generally detest remakes. I'm sorry, but if it ain't broke don't fix it, or if it was already broken there's no need to smack it around. I enjoyed Richard Donner's 1976 horror classic The Omen though I can't say that I am consumed by it. The movie was a nice little time-killer but hardly a classic. What surprises me about the 2006 remake is that it doesn't make mediocrity out of mediocrity but actually improves on the original material. This is a solid film told with mood and atmosphere and characters, not from a lot of digital effects nick-nacks or that annoying "RUNT!" noise on the soundtrack that makes up most horror films, though it does have one or two.Even with some shortcomings, I have to say I really enjoyed this film because it was true to the original story. It doesn't hammer us with a lot of needless visual effects but allows the situation to come out of real life. The movie begins where The Da Vinci Code fears to tread, with astronomers from the Vatican observing three shooting stars in the sky then interpreting them as a sign that The Son of Satan is born this night. That leads to an interesting but ill-advised lecture in which the signs in the book of Revelation point to the Tsunami in Indonesa, Hurricane Katrina and the attacks of September 11th. Those scenes integrated into an entertainment film took me out of the movie because I think there are other ways to get your point across. But anyway, let's move on.Meanwhile in Rome, a baby is born to an American Ambassador and then dies. A doctor quietly informs the father Robert Thorn (Liev Schreiber) that he can have the son of an unwed mother and that his wife need not know about it (I was waiting for the mother to try and figure out who the kid resembles but it never comes up). Our first clue as to Damien's troubles begin when his nanny hangs herself during his birthday party. It is a disturbing moment that, even in a remake, still works.Ominus signs bubble-up that suggest that Damien is not quite right. He's never sick, kids don't play with him, a snarling drooling rotweiler is always lurking about, zoo animals become violent in his presence, he nearly pulls his mother's hair out on his way to church and, oh yes, there's that business of his mother on the stairway balcony. It gets worse with the typical scenes of nervous priests babbling about books of the bible while trying to convince Thorn that "Your Son Must Die!!" His reaction is pretty much as a father would react, tell the nervous priest to take a hike until the bodies start stacking up then maybe consider hearing him out.After it becomes clear to Robert that his son is not quite human there is a long road trip in which he and a good-natured tabloid photographer named Jennings played by David Thewlis (who played Lupin in the third Harry Potter film) travel back to Rome to solve the mystery. The photographer is along to keep Robert on track because he's noticed that his photographs seem to portend death. A white line across his neck in one photo shows the he will die soon as well and anyone who has seen the original already knows his infamous fate.Those scenes in Rome are some of the best looking in the film, using reds and browns and light and shadow to suggest an eerie presence that is constantly shadowing them. There is a tense, very quiet scene that had me leaning forward with fascination, as Thorn and the photographer visit a half-dead priest (who could take skin-care tips from Emperor Palpatine) and ask for information. The man barely communicates but the scene proceeds almost in chilling whispers.A film like this needs an anchor and like Linda Blair who played the center of The Exorcist while still maintaining a supporting role this one includes a chillingly effective performance by little Seamus Fitzpatrick who doesn't mug but simply observes, squints, grins and looks up at his grown-up parents. He has exactly two words of dialog and for my taste that's probably more than the movie needs. His screen time gets smaller and smaller as the films progresses but what he leaves us with in the early scenes is chillingly effective.The most valuable thing that The Omen has to offer is that it isn't a splatter movie with a lot of dumbed-down scenes with things jumping out of the sides of the screen, the movie considers the situations and is more interested in displaying a tone, a mood that comes naturally from the story. There are long passages in the film with little to no dialog and when there is an action scene it's brief and to the point. I mentioned The Exorcist and this film reminds me of some of the qualities I valued from that film.There is a realistic setting with an unrealistic motivation at it's core and having grounded us in a narrative that we are familiar with, that makes the shocks resonate more. There are many deaths in this movie but the movie works it's way toward them. There are the usual impalings, be-headings, shootings, burnings but it's not used as splatter porn but as a means of reminding us what we're dealing with here.Thirty years after the original Omen, this movie stands on his it's own. It's almost shot for shot but it avoids the copy-cat catastrophe of that awful Psycho remake. Not much is tinkered with in the story department but I think the filmmakers have given us a better and scarier experience.

It doesn't help that the original is one of my all time favourite films but I found this a total disappointment.I think if a classic is going to be remade then they should try to approach it in a different kind of way but this copies the original virtually scene for scene.That leads to inevitable comparisons.The most obvious is the acting in which Schrieber and Styles deliver shockingly wooden performances.I actually thought it was laughable in places.Whereas Peck and Remick had a chemistry that made the audience genuinely care for them it's almost impossible to give a damn about the leads in the remake.The other main difference is what,to be fair,very few horror films (especially modern ones) seem to capture and that's atmosphere.The original had a very eerie feel to it,helped in no small part to Jerry Goldsmith,but it just wasn't there at all in the remake.On the plus side Farrow and Postlethwaite are decent. A fair argument with remakes is to try and forget the original and just take the remake on its own merits but it just falls short in so many ways for me personally. If an upcoming film maker wanted to learn lessons on how to make a good horror film they should watch the original and then the remake.

That's the big question for this movie. I'm not going to go through this shot for shot. I don't know how many lines are different. I don't know how many scenes are shot at different angles. None of the changes are significant enough to overshadow how some of the most iconic imagery in movie history are simply copied. It's annoying at best, and sacrilege at worst.Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, and David Thewlis are all great actors. And it's incredible that Mia Farrow played Mrs. Baylock. It's a well made movie. The problem is we've seen this movie before. We've seen these images before. We've seen the nanny jump off the roof before. We've seen the priest spiked through the chest before. We've seen Damien on his tricycle before. What's the point of a remake if it means copying?