Starring: Rutger Hauer, Shannon Whirry, Norbert Weisser, Tina Cote, Anna Katarina Directed By: Albert Pyun Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Sony Pictures Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 99 Release Date: December 28, 2004 Running Time: 84 minutes Theatrical Release Date: 1996
Product Description: In the post-apocalyptic world that is Earth machines rule. Having killed off their human adversaries the Roms and the Droids have squared off against one another in the search for mankind's last and most fatal element of war: guns. When Omega Doom (Rutger Hauer) strides into the fray the machines hone in on the stranger and the slaughter intensifies. As combatants are decimated and the survivors get closer to the mythical stash of the guns the question becomes "Will there be anything left to kill?"System Requirements:Running Time: 86 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: PG-13 UPC: 043396073449 Manufacturer No: 07344
An enjoyable story for the imaginative viewer Many people dislike this film because it seems boring or confusing to them. I say all you need is a little imagination to find the beauty of this simple sci-fi story. It seems to take place in a very small part of a very big world. Almost like a tiny glimse into a great novel. While the big story going on far away is deep and complex, the smaller story of these few individuals who came in contact with Omega Doom is more subtle.
I won't spoil it for you, but I recommend watching this movie and doing so with your imagination ready. If you look further into it than just the surface, you can see so many things. Don't let yourself be blinded by all the big-budget, high action, CGI-filled blockbusters out there.
Somewhat disturbing, but it has its beauty As a sci-fi fan, I liked this movie. It starts in a distrubing way, in totally demolished, post-war buildings. Dead bodies lying everywhere... There has been a nuclear war and the humans are dead, only cyborgs remained. The groups of cyborgs fight each other. But then Omega Doom (the good cyborg) comes, destroys the bad cyborgs, leaves the good cyborgs alive, and departs. The end is definitely optimistic, it's a happy end. So, the movie gave me a moral satisfaction that the good prevails over evil after all.
This movie really has extremes in it: extremely beautiful women (a blond and 3 brunettes) and an extremely ugly one (with a black mask). It has amazing special effects, such as the talking head, detached from its body. Overall, once you get into the spirit of the movie, you can enjoy it. Inside, the demolished building looks like a medieval tavern, so it's not too bad. It's a simple, unpretentious movie - more like a theatrical play than like a film. But it has it's merits. I remove one star from the rating, because I think that the movie could have been much better if the surrounding buildings were more futuristic, rather than looking so destroyed.
Call me Mr Weird but I liked it... I think some of this film's reviewers are so 'blown away' by films with excesive CGI, big budgets - and even bigger names - that they either won't, or cant, see the good in lesser offerings. This film makes so many sly references to other films that part of the fun is spotting them.
Take the opening where we see a foot coming down on a pile of human bones and skulls. Terminator, right? Then there's all the other stuff that people have picked up on by Sergio Leonne but why has no one mentioned Clint Eastwood and Pale Rider? The scene at the end where Hauer's character just disappears into the sunset? I mean, come on... Oh yeah, and the penultimate fight scene between the Bauhaus look-a-like droid and Hauer is straight out of The Matrix PLUS the Talking Head was like a character out of the Wizard of Oz.
To me this film had humour,atmosphere and subtlety and a cracking performance from Rutger Hauer as the thinking man's - or woman's - Schwarzenneger. I feel sorry for all those who possess the attention span of a goldfish and see any film where 2 mins go by without some scene of mindless sex, or violence, as boring. Don't try reading Dickens guys!
Not Supposed to be Van Damme Nah, I don't think it's a horrible movie. Sure it lacks a lot of action that movies of the period had, but I never thought of this as an action movie anyway. It seemed to me to be more like a comic book/graphic novel meets 70's samurai movie meets spaghetti western. Despite the obvious overarching situation (apocalypse, possibility of humans returning, obvious society gone to hell), it pretty much all but ignores that and focuses on the problem at hand: ridding the robot town of the "bad guys." It ends with a sense that Omega Doom has really done nothing more than put a band-aid on the whole situation, but his actions are more along the lines of self-preservation than anything else. He just showed up for a drink and gets sucked into a fight. That's how pretty much any of the same genre starts. Someone comes along, wanting to be left alone, but some dumb schmuck picks a fight and then our hero has to teach them a lesson. Nothing is resolved, the world is still as crummy as it ever was, but the hero gets to get back on the road in one piece. Lather, rinse, repeat.
That's why this kind of movie appeals to me. I don't think it's boring or a waste of time. It's interesting enough in it's hopeless nothingness. I don't always want to see a happily ever after ending or some Matrix-y, save-the-human-race type of fight. Those are a dime a dozen. That's what has always appealed to me in old samurai movies, though those tend to focus more on making things better. This movie was very reminiscent of Philip K. Dick stories: bleak futures with small stories that just are what they are.
Of course this kind of movie doesn't appeal to everyone, not by a long shot. I think my little brother fell asleep. Van Damme movies were more his thing. Lots of fight scenes and the bad guys get their due. Not that I don't like those movies, I do. It's just that something of the type of movie that Omega Doom is, is a breath of fresh air. There's a pointless despair to it that I enjoy. Something is done, and yet it isn't.
Also, I know the special effects are bad, but I honestly thought it was an 80's movie. I was surprised to see 1995-1997 as a release date. I think it's much better thinking of it as an 80's movie if you're the type of person who just can't get past special effects not being as good as LotR or Star Wars.
So this gets 4 stars from me. Not the greatest, but not the worst. Despite IMDB and Amazon's plot description, it doesn't try to be anything other than it is, it fulfills my comic book/graphic novel pleasures, and I much enjoyed some of the talent in it compared to, say Van Damme.
Rutger Hauer still blows me away Doesn't matter how "good" or "bad" a film is: If Rutger Hauer is in it, he'll upstage everybody. He can't help it. That's the way he's always been and the way he'll always be. Many Rutger Hauer fans understand this about him, which is why we're not as hard on films like "Omega Doom" as some others might be, nor are we critical of Hauer for appearing in them. The man needs a paycheck. The man has to eat.
Rutger Hauer is one of the world's most unusual and most magnificent actors, yet the shocking truth is that for at least a decade he's been forced to wander the globe like a man without a country, ever in search of a role that's worthy of him. He's way too classy for the usual Hollywood "star vehicle" and way too full-blooded for most U.S. independent films. Even Europe doesn't know quite what to do with him, as "Omega Doom" (filmed in Bratislava, Slovakia, on a 20-dollar budget) amply attests.
Hauer's enormous magnetism, keenly intelligent sensuality, and unshakeable elegance have been his greatest liabilities as well as his greatest assets as an actor. When you're a powerfully masculine, one-of-a-kind screen presence in a world where film audiences prefer their male actors to be mindless head-bashing clones or AC/DC pretty boys, you're likely to find yourself banished to Bratislava making Grade B philosophical robot movies; there it is.
I'm always careful to watch Rutger Hauer films because they're Rutger Hauer films, not because I expect them to be "good" films. I don't expect them to be "bad" films, either, although I'm happier for Rutger when his films are "good." Mainly, I'm happy for Rutger that he's working at all in any film anywhere. In "Omega Doom" he keeps his chin up and soldiers on, way too brainy and generous an actor for the scant material he's been given to work with, but work with it he does, and, as usual, manages to be as mesmerizing and as sexy as ever.
All 3 stars I've given to "Omega Doom" belong entirely to Rutger Hauer, so if you're not a wild fan of his the way I am, you might want to consider skipping this one. Even wild fans of his might want to consider skipping "Omega Doom" and consoling themselves with watching "The Hitcher" again.
Me, I wouldn't miss a Rutger Hauer film -- "good", "bad," or "unclassified" -- for all the tea in China.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tony's Online Tips
Trevor
