Harry says THE OMEN remake was put together by paint-sniffing clowns!

Harry Here. How stupid are the changes in this utterly retarded remake of THE OMEN? Here… Judge for yourself:

1. Robert Thorn (Liev Schreiber) starts off the film as the number 2 man to the Ambassador to Italy. So – once his child is born – and this guy has been appointed to be the Ambassador to the U.K. – which means it’s time for this guy to die, so that Robert Thorn will become the Ambassador to the U.K. WAIT A SECOND… That isn’t how that works. If an Ambassador dies, that Ambassador’s second in charge of the Embassy doesn’t take over his job in any permanent way… Ambassadors are APPOINTED and Liev as a first time Ambassador would not be given that appointment. PLUS – when the “Ambassador” was killed they show an insert shot of his watch… his L.E.D. digital watch… which there’s no fucking way in Hell that an Ambassador to Italy would be classless enough to be wearing a “Digital” watch… but anyway – he dies at 06:06:06… and the film is filled with that type of “cute” self-referential bullshit.

2. Julia Stiles is taking a bath and has a waking nightmarish vision… which includes visions of her slit wrists… dried, btw. A vision of the autistic pouty gelfling named Damien in this incredibly crappy wooden mask, that I swear to God looked exactly like the mask from “THE MASK” just standing by the tub looking at her with his pouty autistic eyes. And random demonic imagery from the worst music video of choice. All these edits were met with terrible atonal loud punches… for additional scare value.

3. However, that was not the only “Visions” the demon from TIME BANDITS shows up at random points in a brightly colored robe – also accompanied by loud SCARE music.

In fact, most of the “scares” were audio increases on the soundtrack – which many in the audience greeted with hands over their ears.

4. Remember the Baboon Attack on the car? Well now, they’re on a school fieldtrip to the London Zoo… in the Primate area – where guys in shitty gorilla costumes began attacking and cracking the glass… while tiny monkeys hide behind branches.

5. Evil German Shepard. It just looked absolutely retarded.

God – just trying to remember this movie makes my head hurt. Marco Beltrami’s score was absolute shit. Very straight to video hack shit. The costume design… Terrible. Always using the brightest color of Red to underline that something evil is up.

The worst thing… That fucking kid. His school of acting comes from doing impersonations of Gary Coleman’s “Whatchu tawkin’ bout, Willis?” face. You know, The one where he tucks his chin and looks out the top of his forehead with that pouty, “Huh?” look? Yeah, that’s it. About 98% of this movie, you’re wanting to just get to Megiddo and get the knives and stab this brat to death. Not Damien Thorn, but the imposter playing Damien Thorn. This is either the worst child actor of all time or Jake Lloyd in disguise.

I’m reminded of the time when I saw that first long trailer for this movie, where I wrote that I felt that Fox had terribly miscast this child. Cuz, there’s not a single moment of genuine “Kid” in this film. He’s evil. If you remember the original… the child playing Damien in the car ride to the church ceremony – where… in front of the church he begins bugging out. Well in that version – the kid had this “unease” about him. Like maybe his tummy was hurting. There was just something… off, about the child. In this film… He’s just doing the “Whatchu tawkin’ bout, Willis?” face. Seriously. It’s like… KILL THE BOY NOW!

It doesn’t help that Liev Schreiber is about as “statesmanlike” as Jerry Lewis. At one point, I wondered why on Earth they had cast him in this role, then I realized that his first name could be rearranged to spell EVIL, and I thought maybe the director thought that was a sign. He's just awful in everyway in this role. One – he has terrible hair. Two – he doesn’t dress like someone in his job. That his primary face is… CONFUSION and CONCERN – even when there’s nothing to be confused or concerned about is just terrible. There’s no sense of “command” or “confidence” or “charm” to him. Maybe that it’s just seeing him in shot for shots where Gregory Peck once was… But I remember a scene in the original where Gregory Peck and his wife are in the new house and she calls him the next President of the United States… and while Schreiber and Stiles were in their big oversized house… that scene popped into my head and I just thought… “This loser could never be President.” And that concept just stuck.

I think the main problem with this bland, tasteless affair is that the studio decided to remake an “A” picture – and cast it with “C” actors in the lead roles. Schreiber and Stiles have zero weight in these roles. Maybe in a remake of ROSEMARY’S BABY – when you have a newlywed couple in an apartment in the wrong tenement…. But in OMEN – Schreiber is supposed to be a THORN. And they’re supposed to build up the sense of importance that the THORN family has in the world and in the West. At Damien’s birthday party – it just comes across as Nuevo-riche trash celebrating. There’s no sense of weight. In fact, the photographers and the house and the carnival setting all feels out of place because you don’t buy the importance of Schreiber and Stiles. Cuz they don’t belong in these surroundings.

This film just takes the lesser road at every turn. From casting to scares to effects to music and definitely in terms of Direction. This is just a flat obvious sub-standard paint by numbers affair.

Literally – there is only a single moment worth seeing in this film. The decapitation. It’s clever and glorious… but everything else is just fucking dreck.

At the end of the film, I looked at the folks that saw the film with me. Yoko, Roro, Father Geek and my nephew Kublakhan… and we all shared a look of just tired, let me out of here faces. And Kublakhan, before any of us could say a thing, says out loud. “I hate that movie, it gave me a headache, I never want to come to this theater again,” and ordinarily – we’d all laugh at this critique of THE OMEN by a 5 year old boy… but we all agreed with that statement.

It’s a boring, loud piece of trash that even a child can see the flaws with. And before you ask me why we took a 5 year old to THE OMEN – the reason is quite simple. It’s about a boy exactly his age that is EVIL and has to be killed. Excellent fodder for showing why he should be a good boy. Well, the next two days will be kind to him. He’s seeing MONSTER HOUSE and CARS next.

I’m warning you horror lovers – this is a steaming boring turd of indistinction. Move along, but when it plays on cable… tune in about an hour in – sit through about twenty minutes of pain and then see a great decapitation. That’s all this fucker has going for it.