Verdict:
If you asked me when I first watched it, I’d say ‘yes’ (oh, I was so young and naïve).
But now I am not sure. It’s not incoherent. Not every shot is trash. The scene progression generally makes sense. Some actors make an attempt at acting. But just as some excellent movies are more than the sum of their flawed parts, so are Omega Code 1 and 2 terrible, even though they make sense on a scene-by-scene basis.
Sure, there are plenty of movies that are worse on a technical level, such as small vanity projects by narcissistic businessmen, but Omega Code 1 and 2 are bad on multiple levels, from trying to sucker in people by waving high-level actors like Michael York in front of their faces to the terrible story, to the unrighteous fact that hardcore Christians will pay to see a Christian movie, even if it’s bad.
At the same time, these films are interesting. Their failings are interesting. The production background and storytelling choices are interesting.
The first film takes on the bible code: the idea that if you pick out patterns of letters from the bible, you can get prophecies. On top of that, the film also layers a secondary storyline: the rise of a successful powerful man, who seems to be achieving great things, thereby charming the public, only to turn out to be the bad guy. The second Omega Code: Megiddo, is essentially an alternative retelling of the first story, which tosses out the bible code and the main protagonist, in favour of concentrating on the Antichrist’s story from childhood and adding more special effects.
The premise of the movies is interesting, but its execution is awful. The transition between the story beats becomes increasingly jarring and the writing becomes increasingly asinine. The Antichrist is weak as a villain. Both films end with a massive Deus Ex Machina.
I do not mean to offend anyone, but it is impossible not to attribute some of the failures of the storytelling to the film’s religious framing. The Bible regularly resolves its stories with the appearance of God or a holy spirit, who then causes something supernatural to happen. In cinema, this would be considered bad storytelling, but in a religious context, it’s considered a miracle and is a perfectly reasonable way to end a story.
The other related problem with Christian movies is that they shove their message at the cost of good storytelling. These two movies do this to a lesser extent, but even their message seems to be muddled by the pacing issues.
Clearly, this does not mean that religious stories can’t be good, given a number of historical examples to the contrary, but such a venture requires attention to narrative these two movies simply don’t have.
Also, both movies appear to deal with the Armageddon, but neither is accurate to its source material. If my memory serves me right, there supposed to be a whole final judgement and an ascension to heaven and a second coming of Christ. The sequel delves more into those events, but neither of the movies features the seven seals or Mr. Christ reigning for a millennium. I’m not particularly religious, but even I’m upset at such a butchering of The Book of Revelations.
If there is one redeeming feature about these movies, it’s the talent the producers managed to sucker in. In the first film, Casper Van Dien and Michael Ironside reunite after their service in Starship Troopers, while Michael York plays the bad guy. In the second film we lose Van Dien and Ironside but get Michael Biehn and a few cameos from the likes of Lee Ermee. The cast does an ok job in both movies and elevates them far beyond what they deserve. Some of the actors should’ve gotten a medal for the authenticity of their delivery of the silliest lines ever written for a film.
However, due to the lacking direction and writing, the leads overact, especially Van Dien and York, and this overacting eventually starts to grind down your very soul. There is a particularly jarring scene in the first film, in which loud music suddenly starts playing and the two characters begin overacting in turn, with the dialogue trying to sound Shakespearean.
While we’re at it, we should address the phenomenon that is Michael York. He has been struggling with a rare disease for some time, which impeded his acting. This may be one of the reasons for his decline as an actor and the necessity to appear in such low-level movies as these. Either way, he plays a caricature of himself.
The camera work and some of the special effects are surprisingly good, but the CGI is inexcusable. It’s possible that the producers were not familiar with the standards of special effects, but someone should’ve told them. The battle at the end of Megiddo was pretty good, as it was mostly just footage of live action explosions and gunfire. As for the editing, it’s hard to say if the awkward scene changes are due to poor editing or due to a lack of footage and poor direction.
The music accompaniment doesn’t quite blend with the events and sounds cheap. It consists of a mix of synth chords and various orchestral sounds, seemingly with the use of an electronic sample library. It is menacing, but also too random. It is on par for a TV show or a soap opera, but lacks the punch needed for a cinematic experience.
The first Omega Code has been panned by critics, with the reviews being as negative as they are for its sequel, which I’m not sure is fair. The first film is slow, but it starts out coherent and slowly falls off the rails towards the end. It has the look, feel and all the excitement of a made-for-TV film or an episode of a TV show, sometimes crossing into soap opera territory, with its dragging story, overacting, a focus on characters and that synth piano. However, the first Omega Code is a masterpiece compared to its sequel. Although it has a much higher budget, Megiddo seems to have spent all of it on special effects, as the story is less coherent, and the dialogue is worse. Megiddo feels like an extended episode of a 90s teen sci-fi show, but without the action for most of its runtime. I expected Buffy the Vampire Slayer to walk in at any point and start high kicking the Antichrist, but she never did.
How did the Omega Code cost only 7 million to make, given the number and calibre of the actors involved? Now, it is true that there very few special effects, but one can’t help but imagine that certain people agreed to work more for less, because this was a religious film. Megiddo: Omega Code 2 comes in at a budget of 20 million, which is still quite low, and not worth it, given how poor the CGI is.
The sad thing is that these movies make me want to see a better version of this story. The story of a man who comes to power by achieving good outcomes, that are too good to be true, only to turn out to be the Antichrist once he has enough people worshipping him, and then there is a massive battle between him and the rebels, led by one of his former followers. This sounds cool. A good execution of that premise could make for an impressive film, but Hollywood has tried to create an Armageddon movie several times now, and all the attempts have failed. If anything, this attempt is the most religiously authentic.