The Omega Code

AUUUGGGHHHHH!!!! My Brain!! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

I was warned. The preview was terrible. I mean, really bad. We're talking Dr. Who PBS previews were better laid out. But I saw Ironside and I saw York and I thought - "Hell, I could put up with Van Dien. The story looks kinda neat." I was hoping to dispel the myth that a bad preview = a bad movie. After all, we've seen awesome previews and felt really gypped when we reached the real thing.

I was wrong.

WOULD IT HAVE KILLED THEM TO HAVE PUT FORTH A LITTLE EFFORT?!! TO HAVE A LITTLE CONTINUITY??!! TO USE FAKE BLOOD??!! (instead of digitized crap - serious, it's a 3 second shot of blood on a hand. Nothing fancy. But it's the black ooze effect from the X files) He's nearly run over by a semi - whoops, it was a dream. Sorry. There was 20 minutes of story leading up to it. What? They didn't know how to make him jump off to the side of the road to avoid it? They make him run back to a cyclone fence that he just scaled, and suddenly he can't scale it anymore? Whoops - it was dream.

15 - count 'em 15! - people LEFT during the movie.

This director needs to be dragged out and shot! In the knees! And left to starving 3 legged beavers!

When you blow up something - don't superimpose flying teddy bear stuffing. That's a BUILDING exploding, not a damn Ewok!

I watched in horror as Caspar van Dien, already a bad actor with only StarShip Troopers to use as a credential on a resume for McDonald's, somehow get WORSE. I just rolled my eyes and snickered.

He kept getting worse. Then suddenly Michael Ironside starts following suit. An eyebrow raised; this isn't funny anymore, but I stay game. Maybe it's just Van Dien rubbing off. York comes on the screen. Yes! The Man of The Hour. Like Sean Connery carrying Highlander 2 on his shoulders, I had hopes my boyfriend's money wasn't completely wasted.

It was.

He was more serious and convincing in Austin Powers : The Spy Who Shagged Me. Van Dien and him, both walking around in, seriously, JESUS poses as they talk to each other. Like they were on stage and not on film. Arms out, staring at the ceiling of a room which had NO significant value. Talking to each other.

Talking? Sorry, UPSTAGING each other.

Wanna know a turning point in the movie? Van Dien drops to his knees and says, "Jesus ... save me."

Suddenly everything is o.k!

And just when York is about to nuke Israel - what stops him? GOD nukes HIM! That the only way to describe it.

Pathetic. Anticlimactic. Weak.

Then the credits roll. And someone in the audience said it could have been better. A retort - "Yeah, if it had been made in Mexico."

More stock footage than an Ed Wood film, more chopped up than Eyes Wide Shut (don't see that, either), and more distant from the original idea than Highlander 2. These actors will be STAINED forever.

Even when you take Van Dien out of the scene, the rapport between Ironside and York is like 2 vaudevillians - only with York hamming it up because Ironside has decided to just read his lines, not act them.

No sex - No staged violence (just stock footage - The Middle East is good to us that way) - No soul - nothing. What the fuck?! I don't get it and never will. This will never reach television because it's entirely too preachy, too long winded, and too dull.

Mortal Combat for TV has a better soundtrack. MASH had a better soundtrack. 3's Company had a better soundtrack!

What did I like about this movie? York possesed by the Devil. It's the only way to explain the rest.

Logan's Run was obviously a long, long time ago.

-review by Eileen Heath