The Omen
By David DiCerto
Catholic News Service
NEW YORK (CNS) -- Anyone unfamiliar with Catholicism who wanders into a multiplex this summer is likely to leave with a pretty warped impression. On the heels of "The Da Vinci Code," with its murderous monk and egregious distortions, comes "The Omen" (20th Century Fox), a stylish and suspenseful, if unnecessary, remake of Richard Donner's 1976 supernatural potboiler.
The new version stars Liev Schreiber (in the Gregory Peck role) as Robert Thorn, an American diplomat serving in Rome. Arriving at a hospital maternity ward, he learns that wife Katherine's (Julia Stiles) pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, ruling out future conceptions. A duplicitous priest (Giovanni Lombardo Radice) prevails upon Thorn to substitute a newborn whose mother died during childbirth that same night. Thorn agrees, and he and Katherine raise the infant boy -- Damien (who grows into the eerie-eyed Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) -- as their own -- and Katherine is none the wiser.
When his boss is killed in a horrific accident, Thorn is appointed ambassador to Great Britain and relocates his family to a London estate where strange things start to happen: During Damien's fifth birthday party, his nanny (Amy Huck) hangs herself in front of the guests, a school outing to the zoo takes a savage turn, and mysterious markings show up on a British photographer's (David Thewlis) prints presaging bizarre demises for those photographed. Meanwhile, a distraught priest, Father Brennan (Pete Postlethwaite), shadows Thorn, raving ominous warnings that the true identity of the boy is the son of Satan and he will grow to become the Antichrist foretold in the Book of Revelation.
A diabolically dowdy Mia Farrow (shades of "Rosemary's Baby") plays replacement nanny Mrs. Baylock, the unholy lad's sworn protector.
Skillfully crafted and well-acted though it is, director John Moore's update -- apart from the decidedly younger leads -- is almost a scene-by-scene copy of the original, begging the question: Why remake it? Perhaps the marketing potential of its once-a-millennium release date -- 6-6-06 -- was too good to pass up? Moore's film also duplicates the original's graphic deaths, including a gratuitously gory beheading.
There's some added shadowy Vatican intrigue and the Catholic priests portrayed are, for the most part, cut from the same cartoonish cloth as Dan Brown's villainous clerics, including a double for Pope John Paul II. Then there's that business of having to kill Damien with those ancient devil-disposing daggers -- on a church altar, no less.
Unlike "The Da Vinci Code," the movie does not attack core Christian beliefs, though its horror-film treatment of religion is obviously sensationalized, resulting in the sort of silly pop-religious junk food that eschews an even semi-serious reflection on the spiritual reality of demonic evil for sheer hokum. And while rife with Catholic symbolism, given its hodgepodge of biblical prophecies, nonscriptural inventions and occult mumbo jumbo, the Office for Film and Broadcasting's comment that the original film exhibited an "ignorance of all that pertains to Catholicism" applies here as well.
But if you don't take the film seriously -- given its ludicrous theological underpinnings, it's hard to see how anyone could -- "The Omen" is a fairly decent, if occasionally lurid, thriller.
The film contains some disturbing scenes of violence, including an impaling, a decapitation, a dog mauling, a hanging suicide and a person getting hit by an automobile; a misrepresentation of Catholic doctrine; an instance of rough language and profanity. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
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DiCerto is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Omen opens today 06/06/06
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