The Omen (2006)

It's that time of the year again. Time for candy, costumes, Halloween and horror movies. I've never been a fan of horror movies -- it's easy enough to scare me -- but there are exceptions. One of my favorites is one of the creepiest, scariest flicks ever, 1976's The Omen. I love it, love all of it. But 1976 is what....like almost 40 years old, right? Let's pointlessly remake it!!! Here's 2006's The Omen.

A rising star in politics, Robert Thorn (Liev Schreiber) and his wife, Kate (Julia Stiles), are expecting a child but there are complications during the birth and the baby dies. A priest at the hospital tells Robert something though. A mother died giving birth the same night, but her infant son survived. With Kate having experienced some serious medical issues in getting pregnant, Robert agrees to take the child as their own...without telling Kate. Robert continues to rise through the political ranks -- even becoming the United States ambassador to England -- as their son, Damien, grows up. As the boy gets older though, Kate begins to notice a string of odd incidents plaguing the boy from a shocking death of his nanny to other extremely difficult things to explain. Robert is stunned when a panicked priest hits him with a revelation. He believes Damien is the son of the Devil, the Antichrist. There's no way it could be true, right?

So why remake the original The Omen? Well, other than the money. As near as I can find out through some Internet digging, it was for a gimmick. The 2006 Omen was released on June 6, 2006 at 6:06.06 in the morning. In other words? lots of 666, the number of the beast. Yeah, yeah, it is a cool gimmick but seriously? Making a movie so it could be released on the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year? Come on now. You've gotta come up with something better than that. It did okay in theaters, getting mostly negative reviews but still making $120 million at the box office. If you are going to make a remake of a classic, you should try something new. Do something different.

And that's where we sit. Director John Moore is at the lead of a horror flick that doesn't do much at all to differentiate from the 1976 original. There are a couple changes -- some nightmares for Kate, a reliance on bright, vivid colors to foreshadow impending doom -- but as a whole, this is an almost scene-for-scene remake of the original. The story is virtually identical, whole scenes of dialogue are repeated, and the biggest difference ends up being how certain characters are dispatched (in Final Destination mode). It's creepy, unsettling and legitimately scary at different points with several very good jump out of your seat moments. But...if you've seen the original, you've seen this movie. Some minor differences overall, but mostly, this is the same film.

How about some casting? Liev Schreiber is one of my favorite actors around, and he's got some big shoes to fill here playing the Gregory Peck part. He's got the best performance in this horror remake, an underplayed part focused on the extreme disbelief of the news he receives about his son. No father wants to believe his son/daughter is evil or bad, much less the Antichrist himself. Stiles doesn't come off as well, a performance that is missing something. It feels forced and overdone. Young Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick is very creepy as the possibly evil Damien, his cold, icy stares putting him firmly in the 'Creepy Kids in Movies' department. Also look for David Thewlis as Jennings, a photographer who may know the truth about Damien, Mia Farrow as Miss Baylock, Damien's sinister nanny, Pete Postlethwaite as Father Brennan, a possibly unhinged priest, and Michael Gambon as Bugenhagen, an archaeologist and exorcist.

Look, as I mentioned, this isn't a bad movie. Far from it. It's professionally done, creepy, unsettling and genuinely scary. The score isn't as good, not quite as memorable as Jerry Goldsmith's original score, but the look of the movie is solid. Dark, gloomy, rainy and foreboding, it does add a dimension to the Satanic story. There was no reason to remake it though, especially if the new version is going to stick so close to its predecessor. Maybe viewers unfamiliar with the 1976 original will enjoy it more. I didn't dislike it, but it's okay at best and not much more.

The Omen (2006): **/****

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

In a career that has spanned five decades since he shot to stardom in the 1970s, director Steven Spielberg has quite the impressive filmography under his belt with a handful of classics and a few more not quite but close classics. Easily one of his best is 1993's Jurassic Park, a great film that is as good now in 2011 as it was 18 years ago. It opened the door for all sorts of new movies with new technology.  It's exciting, action-packed, and unique.

Of course, then there's the 1997 sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park which isn't as bad as some critics out to be but at the same time is nowhere near as good as it could/should have been. It's unfair to peg this movie as the one that opened the floodgates, but it's certainly one of the first series/franchises that turned a great stand-alone movie into unnecessary sequel one after another. That's my biggest issue with so many franchises. Harry Potter? Those sequels needed to be made to finish out the story. Jurassic Park? The first film is pretty much perfect as it is, and didn't need sequels.  But you wouldn't be reading this is someone didn't want to make piles of money so here we go.

It's been four years since the disaster at Isla Nuba and mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is still trying to put the experience behind him. He is approached by InGen head and creator of Jurassic Park John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) with a proposition. There were actually two islands where dinosaurs lived, and he wants Malcolm and a small team to go to the second island and investigate, see how the creatures are living without human interference. Malcolm refuses...briefly, until he finds out his girlfriend, Sarah (Julianne Moore), a geologist, is already on the island so he agrees to go along. Finding Sarah proves to be the easy part as a financially struggling InGen sends an expedition to the island at the same time. Their objective? Capture dinosaurs so they can be exhibited for a world-wide audience. Malcolm, Sarah and the little team are caught in the middle as T-Rex, velociraptors and more are on the hunt.

I've long been a fan of Michael Crichton's novels, but this is one of the few I haven't read, mostly because I'm not a huge fan of the movie to begin with. If I didn't like the movie much, could the book save it at all? Eh, maybe down the road I'll get to it. My main issue with the movie though is that it is basically a carbon copy of the first movie, but without the energy or excitement. It is the definition of an unnecessary sequel. The script is bad, full of laughable one-liners and equally laughable scenarios, and the action/chases don't know when to stop, an orgy of adrenaline and drama that goes overboard whenever it gets the chance. If you're trying to repeat success, add something to it, don't just settle for the status quo.

What saves this from being a complete waste of time is what else? Surprise, surprise...the dinosaurs, and more specifically the dinosaurs eating people.  You really just can't go wrong with that formula.  The surprise factor of the first movie -- seeing dinosaurs, even if they are CGI -- has worn off some, but the little kid in you can't help but smile when a dinosaur (check that, any dinosaur) comes on-screen. Then think of a T-Rex and its awesomeness, and then a pack of raptors working together...yeah, definitely can't go wrong there. There are characters around who are meant to be dino-bait, and Spielberg certainly finds some unique ways to kill the baddies.  So throw out the action scenes that drag on end into tedium, you've still got a whole lot of badass dinosaurs killing people. Good stuff. Oh, and throw in John Williams' epic, sweeping and iconic score for good measure.

The more I see of Goldblum, the more I suspect he's not acting. He's just playing himself. His Dr. Malcolm isn't an ideal choice to lead a movie, but his character is still pretty cool.  Moore plays Sarah, the girlfriend who -- no disrespect to Moore, just the character -- could have been played by anyone.  She has to run around with Malcolm and look worried.  Oh wait, that's everyone, cardboard cutouts of characters. My bad.  Vince Vaughn and Richard Schiff are good as the other member of Ian and Sarah's team while screen veteran Pete Postlethwaite is a scene-stealer as Roland Tembo, a big game hunter leading InGen's expedition, his desire to bag a T-rex driving him into danger. Look for Arliss Howard and Peter Stormare as two bad guys you just know will meet a nasty fate as well with Attenborough briefly making an appearance as Hammond, still cool and clueless as ever.

There are just elements of unexplained weirdness here that make you question 'Really? That's the best you got?' The biggie for me has always been Malcolm's daughter, Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester), who secretly travels with dear old Dad to the island, not realizing the danger she's put herself in. You'll notice if you look at her IMDB page that she is an African American actress. Not a racist comment, just a comment because the movie never addresses this. Is she adopted? Did Malcolm steal her from a black family? Mostly though beyond just a weird race angle is that her character is annoying and doesn't serve a purpose. Malcolm's already worried about Sarah, and then you throw in another reason. That's great. She also takes out a raptor via a gymnastics act. That ranks high on the list of all-time stupidest movie scenes ever.

The movie on the whole is a mixed bag. Certain scenes are just bad, and action scenes -- like two T-rex's attacking a camper -- just go on too long, not knowing when to pull the plug. If this was any old dinosaur movie, it'd be pretty good in a 'so bad it's good' fashion. But it isn't, following one of the all-time greats, Jurassic Park. Very watchable and generally a pretty dumb movie, but you can do worse.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park <---trailer (1997): ** 1/2 /****   

Clash of the Titans (2010)

English actor Sam Worthington is at an interesting point in his career.  After toiling in relative obscurity on British TV and movies since 2000, the 35-year old actor now stands poised to become one of Hollywood's biggest stars...with the right part.  Where does he go from here? He was by far the best thing about Terminator Salvation and outdoing Christian Bale, managed to hold his own against James Cameron's CGI work in Avatar, and then followed it up with 2010's Clash of the Titans.

An updated version of a cheese-fest in the form of 1981's Clash of the Titans, this is a movie that was remade solely because there is CGI now.  That's it.  There's no other reason to remake the movie.  I haven't seen the original, never really having an interest in it.  But there was potential here if nothing else. It's Greek mythology, and it is nearly impossible to ruin that.  The gods up on Mount Olympus interact, controlling the world with an iron fist, the backstabbings, betrayals and hook-ups that a modern soap opera would be jealous of.  The movie never amounts to much though, a somewhat entertaining movie if nothing else.

The son of a mortal woman and the most powerful of all the Greek gods, Zeus (Liam Neeson), Perseus (Worthington) is saved by a Greek fisherman (Pete Postlethwaite) and raised as one of his own with his family. As he grows up though, a war develops and builds between the ego-tripping gods and the frustrated mortals.  The gods are ready to wipe out the mortals if they don't receive their due, especially lord of the Underworld, Hades (Ralph Fiennes), even threatening to release the monstrosity of a beast, the Kraken. The only option is to sacrifice an Argonaut princess, Andromeda (Alexa Davalos), but Perseus finally embraces his demi-god status to help the mortals win.  With a small group of Argonaut warriors at his side, Perseus heads out into the wilderness in hopes of finding a way to defeat the angry gods and the Kraken.

One of my concerns when I first started reading about the movie was some choices in casting.  As much as I like Worthington, I wasn't sure he was the right choice to play Perseus, son of Zeus. He basically gets to play the only character with any sort of actual development so he's got that going for him.  Like so many other characters though, it is only taken so far.  We've got to have a reason to root for him, and Worthington -- through his own fault or that of the script (more on that later) -- never really provides that reason. He handles the action sequences well enough, but I wish they could have done more with the main character in what looks like it will be a franchise with Clash of the Titans 2 scheduled for a 2012 release.

The rest of the cast -- without a ton of huge star power, not a bad thing -- is more hit or miss.  Neeson, Fiennes and Danny Huston play Zeus, Hades and Poseidon, the most powerful of the Greek gods. Neeson is the best of the three but is really around only to say 'Release the Kraken!' Fiennes glares and looks mean, and I don't believe Huston actually says a word (unless I missed it). Gemma Arterton is a bright spot as Io, Perseus' guardian angel of sorts who looks over him. Mads Mikkelsen is also a big positive as Draco, the Argonaut warrior who questions Perseus' status. A stock character, and one you've seen before, but a good one. His Argonaut squad includes Liam Cunningham, Hans Matheson, and Nicholas Hoult. There's also a CGI warrior -- a Djinn fighter -- who's pretty cool. Along for the adventure are two hunter/fighters brothers, Ozal (Ashraf Barhom) and Kucuk (Mouloud Achour), two very underused characters.

This was a summer blockbuster in 2010 so what should we expect from this flick? Action...lots of action.  Because there is no really good, detailed way to say it, the action scenes are both good and bad.  The potential is there with CGI creating all sorts of mythological characters for Perseus and Co. to battle (giant scorpions, Medusa, the Kraken, Hades' winged attackers), and the CGI looks solid for the most part.  However, the action is from the 'Let's over-edit this scene so it is indecipherable to watch and/or follow!' school of editing. Look it up, the school actually exists. Edited so quickly that the viewer can't see anything is never a good choice as a film-maker.  When the action and editing is slowed down enough where we're able to keep up, it's good stuff.  There just isn't enough of it.

Something was missing from this movie, and maybe it wasn't just one thing; maybe it was lots of little things.  For a blockbuster with all the makings of an epic, it clocks in at just 95 minutes before an extremely long 11-minute credit sequence.  That is not long for an R-rated comedy, much less a historical/mythological epic.  The look of the movie is too clean, too neat and tidy. The musical score is lacking, receding into the background too much where a good score would drive the action. Mostly though, I just never got fully into the movie. With a finished product that's barely 90 minutes long, there just is no time to take a breathe here.  Characters vanish as soon as they appear, and the ones that do stick around aren't given a chance to develop or interact at all.

A decent enough, entertaining movie, but one that is pretty forgettable in the grand scheme of summer blockbusters. Hopefully with the sequel, the cast, script and director actually get a chance to stretch out and get comfortable. The first movie certainly had the potential to be pretty good even if it ultimately wasted that potential.

Clash of the Titans <---trailer (2010): ** 1/2 /****

The Town

I don't really know what happened to Ben Affleck around 2002, 2003.  It was somewhere in there with his relationship with Jennifer Lopez and his part in Gigli that his rising star took a big tumble.  Too bad because the guy definitely had some talent as an actor.  Well in the years since he's been working his way back up, and hopefully with his latest work as both actor and director pays off for him in 2010's The Town.

The movie comes from one of my favorite genres, the heist movie, and more than that...the last job!  It's the premise that a specialist like a robber, thief, crook, hit man, mercenary has been doing what he does for years, and he's fed up with it.  For whatever reason -- favors, guilt, money -- the man agrees to take on one more job before he rides off into the sunset.  This is a story idea that goes across genres, but it works so well with heist movies.  For just his second movie as a director, Affleck does a solid if unspectacular job with a story that is always solid if unspectacular.  It doesn't rewrite the genre conventions, but it does everything well, and that's all I'm asking for when I go see a movie.

A neighborhood in Boston named Charlestown is infamous for its production of bank and armored car robberies with hundreds of such robberies taking place every year.  One native Bostonian, Doug MacRay (Affleck), leads a crew with his hot-wired childhood friend Jim 'Gem' Coughlin (Jeremy Renner), taking down banks and armored cars after weeks of meticulous planning. One robbery doesn't go exactly as planned and Jim takes a hostage, a bank manager, Claire (Rebecca Hall), who they allow to let go soon after. Doug arranges to bump into her to see if/what she knows about the robbery but finds himself quickly falling for her and vice versa.  Can this situation ever work? And with an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) and his task force hot on Doug's crew, can they continue to work without being taken out?

Previewing the movie, one ridiculously stupid ad said The Town was "Heat meets the Departed" so basically the best ever heist movie vs. the best ever undercover thriller movie.  Yeah, good luck with those comparisons.  That said, it's not fair to compare this movie to either even if there are certain similar elements.  Affleck shoots in the streets to give the movie a gritty, authentic look to the story and provides some very cool Boston locations (more on that later) as a backdrop.  The heavy Boston accents can be hard to decipher at times, but you get into a rhythm with it eventually.  The story isn't anything groundbreaking, but it deals with characters and twists that are in a way...comforting, because we have seen this before.  It's all handled so well I didn't even mind though.

With comparisons to Heat and The Departed, I was a little surprised by the lack of action.  An opening robbery goes smoothly, a heist near the middle features a great chase through the narrow, claustrophobic streets of Charlestown, and the finale is the high point, a heist attempt at Fenway freaking Park for a take of over 3 million bucks.  It's hard to do something new or unique with a heist, but setting it in one of the most iconic sports stadiums ever was a genius idea from Affleck. The robbery and the fallout following is an extended sequence that lasts maybe 20 minutes, making up for any lack of action earlier in the movie.  Baseball fans will hopefully appreciate an inside look at Fenway Park in a very cool, very stylish final robbery/shootout.

Maybe more surprising than the lack of action is that the movie doesn't beg for seven or eight more shootouts and robberies.  It would be overkill.  But Affleck gets such good performances from his cast that it's a pleasure just watching them do their thing.  An underrated actor himself, Affleck is the going away star here as Doug, a generally good guy who got caught up in doing something that he's good at.  His childhood was anything but smooth, and he still suffers from some past demons.  His budding relationship with Hall's Claire is never sugary sweet, it's just a genuine bond between two people looking for some sort of normality, some sort of happiness.  They have a definite chemistry, and their final scene together did remind me of a similar scene at the end of Heat.  As the scene-stealer, Renner is phenomenal as Jim, Doug's childhood friend who always seems one step away from exploding.  It's an intense part and an impressive one that doesn't have him on screen much, but he dominates every time he's on the camera.

The cast goes much deeper than those three with Hamm in a thankless, unforgiving role as the FBI agent hunting down Doug's crew.  There's also Gossip Girl's Blake Lively in a surprising turn as Krista, Doug's old fling and sometime hook-up, Chris Cooper in a one-scene role as Doug's jailed dad, and Pete Postlethwaite as the Florist, the local mafioso who has his hand in everything, and Titus Welliver as Hamm's right hand man. I think an ultimate test for a movie like this with "bad guys" as main characters (and I've written about this before) is do you find yourself rooting for them to pull off the job, to get away in the end?  Maybe it's just my messed up barometer of morals, who knows.  The Town hits it head on because it makes these characters sympathetic through their flaws.  This isn't a classic, and I didn't love it, but it is a stylish, well-made heist movie with a great cast.  Definitely check this one out.

The Town <---trailer (2010): ***/****