Omega Doom

"Omega Doom" is a movie whose ambitions clearly outweigh its budget. However, there is something to be said for genre filmmakers like Albert Pyun who try to make the most of the budget they do have. As others have already pointed out, this is essentially a spaghetti Western transported to a post-apocalyptic setting. At times laughably pretentious, at other times interesting. Rutger Hauer (who has the "stoic, mysterious and deadly loner" role, in the classic Clint Eastwood tradition) still has screen presence, and Tina Cote is pretty hot even when she's playing an emotionless, cold-as-ice killer robot. Their last fight could have been longer and better edited, though. (**)

This looks like its going to be an exceptionally dull sci-fi, with Rutger Hauer, looking like some kind of Russian WW2 soldier, playing a renegade android in a post-apocalyptic landscape - a setting which allows for no expensive effects, just a derelict, rubble-strewn building site.

'Omega Doom' is still dull, but when after 20 minutes or so, you realise that the story is a Yojimbo/Fistful of Dollars remake, the film starts to have some minor points of interest.

With no real sci-fi elements - a bloke with shaven bits in his hair, metal gloves and blue contact lenses doesn't totally convince as a fully-fledged android - the film leans towards its Western roots, with two rival gangs holed up on either side of the street and a saloon where Rutger Hauer muses with the friendly female bartender, before playing off the opposing gangs. Hauer fits into the role as the impassive stranger well, accompanied by a spaghetti western guitar theme building up the tension to the inevitable showdowns, which are settled in the classic Western tradition - Omega Doom has a quick draw Shane would be proud of.

Although I quite enjoyed these areas, they couldn't cloud the fact that 'Omega Doom' is boring and derivative, not demonstrating any particular areas of ability on the part of its cast or crew, apart from Hauer who is OK despite being on auto-pilot - but then he is a class actor who, for some reason, prefers to ply his trade in these bargain-basement efforts.

With an annoying whirring noise which accompanies each androids move, and a tiresome 'head' character providing Hauer with his sidekick, there is nothing here for even the most easily satisfied sci-fi viewer. Kurosawa and Leone fans will find enough points of reference to make this interesting, but only in the same way that 'Jaws' fans enjoy 'Orca' or 'Grizzly.

Man-o-man does this movie suck a whole lot. It is so bad that its worth watching to laugh at it and pull an MST3K with friends. I don't know if its important or not, but the plot was lifted from Yojimbo and crunched into one day's time.

'Omega Doom' really does have a special place in my heart. As movies go, it's not the best. It isn't even good. But... well, just watch the thing. There's no way you can sit through the whole sci-fi/western/inexplicable noise-packed experience without either beginning to love it or snapping and attacking bystanders with the remote.

It's less of a movie and more of a game, to be honest. See how long *you* can stand the bizarre whirring sounds, played whenever each and every 'robotic' (translated from Low-Budget: contact lenses and metal gloves) character moves. Even when their eyes move, for god's sake! It's half endurance test, and half bad, bad movie. But watch it anyway.

In a dark and dismal world, Rutger has obviously found passage through a land of endless fatty food buffets. This movie was bad enough on its own, but add a nearly comical robot to be cut to pieces, a gun, a bunch of women borrowed from a Robert Palmer video set (and almost as active), and a waddling Rutger Hauer; what do you have? Something Troma would have refused to release on their Sex & Violence office webcam.