The Omega Man is the second of three film adaptations of Richard Matheson's 1954 novella I Am Legend. Vincent Price starred in the 1964 version, The Last Man On Earth and Will Smith starred in the 2007 version, the only one to retain the title of the novella. The Vincent Price version is relatively unknown now, and will most likely strike viewers as a tamer, moodier precursor to Romero's Night Of The Living Dead. The Will Smith version was a financial success when it was released to mixed reviews, but will probably have little staying power in the minds of sci-fi/horror fans (or Will Smith fans) as time passes. I had heard that The Omega Man was the best of the three adaptations, and the completist in me wanted to see all three anyway, so it seemed like a good bet.
So this movie was completely ridiculous. I almost don't know where to begin. The loose plot of the novella and all three films is that a man-made pandemic has wiped out humanity, with the exception of one man (in this case Charlton Heston), who has managed to survive and attempts to find a cure. He must also battle the infected survivors of the plague, who end up turning into something horrible. In the case of The Omega Man, they're albino, photo-sensitive mutants who are obsessed with destroying all traces of the civilized world, which brought the plague down upon them.
Each of the films is set in the very near future relative to when it was made; in this case, 1977. And boy does it show. In addition to all the staples of early 70s cinema (awkward zooms and obviously fake squib hits), the film manages to display some of the more regrettable aspects of American style from that time, including a jive talking, afro-sporting leading lady (I guess hair care products have long shelf life) and an utterly ridiculous leisure suit worn by Charlton Heston. Even the mutants all wear aviators to shield their light-sensitive eyes. The word honkey is also used. By a mutant. Don't ask.
Now sure, just because a movies dated, that doesn't mean that its bad. And the movie showed promise at the beginning, with Charlton Heston cruising around a deserted LA in a convertible and taking in a viewing of the Woodstock film at movie theatre (the irony of that being the only movie Charlton Heston can watch is pretty delicious). There was even a great sequence where he hears all the payphones on the street ringing at once and covers his ears, screaming to himself that its not real. However, unlike the other two films, which are pretty faithful to the book until the end (the Will Smith version pussied out in a big way here, after coming so close to being awesome), The Omega Man wastes little time diverging from its source material, much to its detriment.
From here forward there will be tons of spoilers for the movie. I don't feel too bad about it, since you've got two other ways of watching this movie, both of which are better. So at the end of the first act, Heston is captured by the mutants and rescued by Lisa (Rosalind Cash) and Dutch (Paul Koslo), who take him to the mountains outside the city, where they live with a bunch of children (for some reason). Dutch actually ends up being the only believable character in the film. Despite looking like a hippie Val Kilmer, his acting is a bit more natural and he has a badass jacket, making him significantly more believable than Heston (who was 48 when the film was made, but looks almost ten years older and acts twenty years younger) or Lisa (who is a terrible actress and a ridiculous stereotype) as a rugged survivor. Anyway, Lisa's brother is succumbing to the sickness and since there's no set pattern to the disease, which can take minutes or months to turn you (an almost unbelievably cheap plot contrivence that pays off in an obvious twist toward the end of the film), the race is on for Heston to use his blood to synthesize a cure.
All of this is pretty paint-by-the-numbers, despite the film foregoing the plot of the book, which leaves the main character by himself for the first two-thirds, slowly succumbing to loneliness and fear. Vincent Price is great at this, since his acting is so off-kilter and strange to begin with, and Will Smith pulls it off surprisingly well in the newer version. Given that Heston can't suppress his bravado at all, remaining almost happy-go-lucky for much of the film, it may have been a good desicion to give him other people to interact with. It also gives him the chance to hook up with a girl half his age, despite the fact that's she's been living with an attractive young dude for two years. Go figure. (Incidentally, I was surprised at how progressive Heston's character was in this film, advocating science and interracial boning, until my roommate reminded me he's essentially playing a gun-nut slaughtering mutated anti-gun-nuts. Oops.)
So by the end, Lisa has an extremely ill-timed conversion to mutantdom and Heston gives his blood to save humanity after getting stabbed in the side with a spear and dying with his arms drapped perpendicular to his body. It's almost as if, out of nowhere, they wanted to draw some kind of parallel.
So let's run back through that. Cheesy effects, shitty acting, random overt Christian symbolism, AND HOLY SHIT THE SCORE. How did I almost forget the score, which, in addition to jumping from synth to world music and everything inbetween, was always uplifting and jaunty regardless of what was happening on screen. We're talking distractingly bad here. I can't believe I almost forgot to bring it up.
I would definitely recommend either other version of this film over The Omega Man itself. And above both of those I would recommend reading the novella itself. It's less than two hundred pages and will definitely get under your skin.
UP NEXT: I've got two British crime flicks arriving via Netflix tomorrow (The Hit and Harry Brown) and I'll probably check out something at the theatre as well. There's actually a bunch of things I want to see, surprising for September. Anyway. Bye.
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