I Am Omega

I'd heard about this one, another apocalyptic combo takeoff on I AM LEGEND and THE OMEGA MAN, that was independently produced on a low budget and released direct to DVD on the Asylum label. It's about a man who is one of the few survivors on Earth after some sort of catastrophe (it's never made clear) has turned people into grotesque and marauding zombies. He meets up with a couple of other guys who need his aid in reaching one known female survivor somewhere who may have the cure within her own blood.

There is nothing that's new or unique here, but it functions very much like a "LAST MAN ON EARTH meets DAWN OF THE DEAD", and is more of a zombie film than anything else. On that level I think it succeeds pretty well in spite of the lack of funds... the ghoul makeup and special effects are actually quite good, and there is a decent amount of one-on-one threat and action with the creatures (who are played by real people). In fact, while watching this I thought to myself how much better this aspect of the movie played out than ANY of the silly and needlessly cartoon-like "dwellers" of Will Smith's mega-budgeted I AM LEGEND (which wasn't released until after this, also in 2007) ! Sometimes less is more in this regard, and a tiny budget requires more realism. Sure, there are many curious mistakes (how do computers still work, and why are there lights everywhere at night, for instance?) but I got the impression that hearts were in the right place and the filmmakers did the best with what they had. **1/2 out of ****

Zombie movie goes martial arts.

The big flaw of the movie is: you've kind of seen it all, because I am Legend is out pretty fresh and maybe you have by now seen the Omega-Man also. The story is ripped!!! AND the script sometimes ain't very good: it happens to be illogical and often you just don't know, what the heck the guys are doing and what for.

BUT: The acting in Omega is still pretty good - partially you'll find some gems. O.k. it's not character, but it's decent enough for a SF/horror/martial arts. What do you expect? Klaus f***ing Kinski??? The camera work is sometimes really good, no joke some really bright shining jewels in there, also the light and the locations, especially in the beginning, when Renchard is on his own. I liked the scene when you really don't know if it's his imagination that haunts him or a monster. The zombie-make up is good, the sounds they make on the other hand is quite simple.

I don't like the attitude to just judge a movie because there is some supposed to be original out there somewhere which can boast with a STAR or so. I don't think Will Smith did such a brilliant Job in Legend and - hey the Legend Script was also kind of obvious, wasn't it :D? Omega at least has one big surprise/turning point, and this makes it more interesting than Legend, no joke, this rip off has genius own ideas about the Last-man-on-Earth-against-the-zombies-Topic.

Try to forget that there is Legend, that there is 28 days, weeks whatsoever and try to take this movie as it is, without bias.

SEE! Not so bad, eh?

This isn't a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination but it's not bad and definitely a lot better than old jug ears effort. Here's why I'd rather watch this a million times than watch Will Smith doing his pitiful Shrek/nervous breakdown scene one more time.

The people in this film aren't computer generated and though they don't look great they don't look like computer game bad guys skating over the floor. This is a definite improvement. In the odd scene they actually look quite good.

It leaves the more philosophical aspects of the book and two films alone. Fair enough, it's not like we haven't seen it done and rather it was absent than messed up and garbled like Legend.

There's a small amount of chemistry between the characters, in Legend there's all the spark of a pair of rubber gloves rubbing together. The characters are all pretty simple but they do have a personality of sorts, again a step up from Legend.

Lastly the main character doesn't really express any emotions which is fair enough, I prefer that to the two faces Will Smith can pull off. You can accept a man who is totally robbed of emotion but it's harder to accept a man that only has two facial expressions and flicks through them and gets his movie described by some genius on here as "an acting buffet."

It's not a perfect movie, some bits are a bit weak but I genuinely enjoyed it so give it a chance you might like it too. For a cheap rip off it's surprisingly entertaining.

Starts of nicely. Mark Dacascos kills some wicked zombie thingies and plants some bombs to create havoc. In the mean-time he starts going mad and hears voices after the prolonged period of isolation.

This part of the movie actually works with Dacascos hearing stuff that is not there, talking to himself and doing an adequate acting job to go with it.

Unfortunately it goes downhill when new characters arrive and Mark ends up going on a rescue mission into the heart of the zombie manifestation. Plot-holes start appearing galore and no logic is really given behind the actions of main protagonists.

Not terrible, mildly adequate piece of fun, but to be quickly forgotten.

Mark Dacascos stars a lone soldier looking to blow up the city to destroy zombies that are overtaking the world, seems that you can be effected by their blood, but through kickboxing and gunfire Dacascos saves the day and perhaps the last woman on earth. Here's the deal I Am Omega is better than average for an asylum released product. Indeed the thing that is strange about Asylum films is that where as people liked Cannon and Full Moon, this group is universally hated and though their movies sell well the public opinion is of disgust and dislike. I Am Omega actually isn't too awful of a movie. I mean it's still a bad movie but it does have it's moments of goofy fun and with the reuniting cast of Kickboxer 5's Geoff Meed and Mark Dacascos the movie is watchable for fans of Dacascos. I think the main problem with this movie is that we know so little about how the apocalypse came and many loose ends are left at the end. That being said some of the action is okay and the movie's fast pace made it watchable. As for Asylum, I understand why people dislike their films, Transmorphers, Snakes On A Train and so on were all really awful films but I give credit to this one, in that I think fans of Dacascos will enjoy this movie. The bad acting (from everyone but Dacascos), the cheap production values and underwritten script detract the casual viewer but like I said fans of B.movies may find some enjoyment in this.

* * out of 4-(Fair)