Director: Graham Baker
Cast: Sam Neill, Rossano Brazzi, Don Gordon, Lisa Harrow
Have I Seen it Before: Never. It’s an interesting byproduct of finding a good price on a movie series box set that I feel obligated to watch more sequels than I had planned to for a movie, but I should probably reserve pontificating on that unfortunate phenomenon until I force myself to watch Omen IV: The Awakening (1991).
Did I Like It: I’m trying to get caught up on some reviews as I write this, and thus the last few minutes of The Final Conflict are playing while I am typing. So, no, I’m not a fan.
Had anyone but Sam Neill played the role of the adult Damien Thorn, the film would have been forgotten beyond the point it already has. Faint whiffs of his solid performances to come* are there, but the film isn’t offering a whole lot else. There’s a lot of talking about how grave a problem the antichrist is, countered by an equal amount of talk from Damien and company about how annoying the Nazarene is.
Not the stuff of great cinema, and that is before we even start talking about how making the antichrist not a little kid anymore reduces the creepiness quotient. The movie is also withholding on the promise of its poster. Neil sits there with the seal of the President behind him, and things would be significantly more dread-inducing if Thorn was the leader of the free world, and not angling very hard to lead some commission with the UN.
At least Jerry Goldsmith pulls up on his scores, and the music here is perhaps a bit unremarkable, but a significant improvement over the orchestral grunts he had to offer in Damien: The Omen II (1978).
*He seems to think he was woefully in over his head when he did a screen test for The Living Daylights (1986), but I think he would have equated himself rather well, and if you think that was easy for me to say at our last opportunity to get Timothy Dalton in the role, you’re wrong.