The Omen (1976)

Director: Richard Donner

Cast: Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Harvey Spencer Stephens

Have I Seen It Before: I wasn’t on Beyond the Cabin in the Woods when they did it, but there definitely was a moment where the remake was coming out in 2006 and I was resolute in my need to turn my nose up and only watch the original.

Did I Like It: I don’t get a sense that my opinion about the film has changed in those nearly twenty years, though. I’m never not delighted to see David Warner in anything, and the Whovian in me that developed since then was delighted to see Patrick Troughton.

Ultimately, though It’s a bit too arch to be too terribly frightening. I would imagine to audiences in the 1970s, digging in a grave and finding a jackal is frightening, but I’m reasonably sure I’ve laughed at that moment at least twice in the 21st century. Special effects are vivid and often in slow-motion to add dread of the carnage to come. But something tells me that wasn’t really David Warner’s head that got sliced off by that errant pane of glass.

Also, one feels that there are too many characters, most of whom don’t stick around long enough to either unnerve or engender sympathy. I’m consistently shocked—and have occasionally had to remind myself—that the film isn’t based on a novel or any other source material. It always feels as if they were protecting themselves from criticisms of abandoning this phantom source material, and had to give each element its due. Even then, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) abandoned all signs of Tom Bombadil, and The Godfather (1972) never checks in with Lucy Mancini until Part III runs around, at which point it completely ignores what we learned about her in the novel. Which, again, doesn’t absolve this film. It’s just overcrowded for the sake of being overcrowded.

Tron (1982)

Director: Steven Lisberger

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. I would imagine that I kind of missed the film at that moment when it really had the ability to burrow into a person and become a part of their personality.

Did I Like It: Aside from the always charming presence of both Bridges and Boxleitner—to say nothing of the always reliable presence of David Warner—the film could really start to smell. How many live action adventure movies from Disney are anything other than the pits? A few Pirates flit through my mind, but one really has to wonder how much those are going to hold up as we’ve generally decided—guilty or not—that we’ve decided we don’t want to hear anything further from Johnny Depp.

The film’s real strengths lie in its simplicity. Lisberger and company looked at the still embryonic technology of Computer-Generated Imagery and realized something that I wish other filmmakers and studios might have kept close to their heart: It looks like crap. Still does, usually.

So, it looks like crap. What do you do with it then? Let it be the backbone of every opening title to a movie of the week? Let it sell tchotchkes in commercials for the rest of eternity? Or is there a story to tell using this tool?

Telling a fantasy adventure story—equal parts The Wizard of Oz (1939) and gladiator films—that takes place in the midst of the computer itself makes the images make the kind of sense that seems obvious but only occasionally happens in the world. Artificiality can work—can save itself from being jarring—if it exists among more artificiality. It was the first time they were able to do that, and for my money, it might be the last.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)

Director: Michael Pressman

Cast: Paige Turco, David Warner, Ernie Reyes, Jr., Toshishiro Obata

Have I Seen it Before: Almost as many times as the original.

Did I Like It: The first film was a huge success, and as often happens, a sequel was rushed into production. The film doesn’t work nearly as well as its predecessor, and ultimately doesn’t have to. It has a very short grocery list of things it needs to accomplish. Turtles arrive. They fight.

Now, some have noted that the violence of those fights is significantly turned down, even going so far as not having the various turtles use their trademark weapons in combat. In an early scene Michelangelo improvises a line of sausage links in lieu of his normal nunchaku. Honestly? The change in combat doesn’t even occur to me when I am watching the film, and I’m only reminded of it when reading about the film after the fact.

One could pick at the thing that happen in the film. Why does the ooze not only cause Shredder to grow, but also change the sharpness, number, and configuration of his blades? Who thought Ernie Reyes Jr.—an accomplished and capable stuntman—needed to try regular acting this time around? Why is the titular “secret of the ooze” actually what the casual viewer would have suspected all along (that it is just improperly disposed of nuclear waste)? Why is Vanilla Ice playing a club near the wharf, or for that matter, why is Vanilla Ice even in this movie in the first place?

One could pontificate on all of those issues and more, but what would be the point? Should we damn a kids movie for not reaching for more than its basest trappings? Even then, there are moments where this film reaches for more than the sum of its parts. Casting David Warner alone classes up the proceedings quite a bit. There’s also that line where Michelangelo reminds himself to drop a line to Ralph Nader. That’s not a line that six-year olds at the time will get. For that matter, here in 2020 it inspired a fifteen minute conversation about Nader’s career as a consumer advocate before he made a name spoiling (yes, you read that right, didn’t think this review was going to be a reignition of twenty-year-old political debates, did you?) elections.

I’ve seen plenty of films purporting to be for grown-ups that don’t inspire that kind of discourse. Just goes to show you that even films like this can hold some surprises.

If only they had kept it up.

Time After Time (1979)

Director: Nicholas Meyer

Cast: Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, Mary Steenburgen, Charles Cioffi

Have I Seen It Before?: Many, many times.

Did I like it?: It’s a solid bet that I’m going to be effusive about anything even tangentially related to Nicholas Meyer, the director of a solid candidate for my favorite film of all time, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). I have a certain soft spot for Volunteers (1985), and I even find some charm in Company Business (1991), even though Meyer largely disowns the film, and I have a hard time getting through it in one sitting.

But this movie is one for the books. As a zealot of the time travel genre, this is in my personal pantheon. I love it without question. I love it so much that I had no choice but to watch the abortive attempt to make a television series out of the concept several years ago. If I ever make something half as good as this movie, my time in creative endeavors will be well-spent.

And it’s odd, even for the year in which it was released, it has a certain antiquated feel. It has far more in common with a film like The Time Machine (1960) than later films like Back to the Future (1985). It even influenced later films, influencing the casting of Back to the Future Part III (1990) and meriting a reference along with other entries of the genre in Avengers: Endgame (2019).

The films strengths rest in the writing and performances. Meyer is physically unable to produce a script that isn’t thoroughly literate. The film ebbs and flows on the philosophies of H.G. Wells, which is only made more ironic when one considers that with his utopian ideals and gentlemanly manor, he is the idealized Star Trek hero in the Gene Roddenberry mold at the center of a film made by a man who tried to revitalize that same genre with newer and fresher interpretations. It doesn’t hurt that left-over ideas from this film helped fuel the eventual screenplay for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).

Malcolm McDowell eschews the hostile icon he made of himself in A Clockwork Orange (1971) in favor of a hero who is comedically overpowered by the proceedings, but will not be obliterated by an uncaring world. David Warner is so quietly effective as the mad Jack that to this day I’m delighted when I see him appear in anything.

If you haven’t watched the film before today, please go make arrangements to view it immediately. We can then keep being friends once that deficiency is rectified.