I Am Omega |
USA • 2007 • 91m •
   • Directed by: Griff Furst. • Starring: Mark Dacascos, Geoff Meed, Jennifer Lee Wiggins, Ryan Lloyd, Joshua Schlegel, Gregory Paul Smith, Matthew Bolton, Myles McLane, Frank Forbes, Afton Forbes, Hayden Forbes, Charles Peeke Jr., Wil Braithwaite. • Music by: David Raiklen.      In post apocalyptic LA being rampaged by zombie like cannibals humans that have some kind of genetic infection local man renchard is forced to live a daily struggle as he trys to locate radio signals and find a cure.
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Review:
Directed by Griff Furst this is a bottom of the barrel Asylum produced low, low budget 'mockbuster' rip-off of The Last Man on Earth (1964), The Omega Man (1971) & the recent Will Smith Hollywood blockbuster I Am Legend (2007) with even it's title being a rather unfunny combination of The Omega Man & I Am Legend. The script by Geoff Meed (who also stars in the thing as Vincent) is simply terrible thus proving his writing skills are as limited as his acting skills. OK so I Am Legend & The Omega Man both had some sort of back-story, some reason why the Earth is overrun with zombies but here in I Am Omega no explanation is given at all. None. Zip. Nothing. The film starts with the Earth overrun with zombies & we just have to accept it. Then there's no explanation as to why certain people still survive, OK so Brianna is immune but what about Renchard, Vincent & Mike? Why are they still alive? What happened to all the other people on Earth? There's nowhere near enough zombies to account for them. Then there's some rubbishy subplot about blowing an entire city up with a few homemade bombs, to destroy an entire city would take a nuclear bomb not two or three homemade bombs strapped to sign posts! The plot is just awful, the first half of I Am Omega consists of nothing more than following Renchard around, while in I Am Legend there was enough of a budget for plenty of action here we gets scenes of him shaving, eating dinner & driving around. There's also a touch of a George A. Romero zombie flick here, the zombies are all rotten flesh eaters & can actually come out during the day. The set-pieces are poor, the dialogue is poor, the character's are poor & the plot is one of the worst around. Why didn't it just rip-off the genetic experiment gone wrong explanation from I Am Legend? Most of the rest of the film is a straight unashamed rip-off anyway. Also why oh why did Renchard & Brianna choose a convertible car with the top down while trying to flee hordes of flesh eating zombies? Wouldn't a car with a roof actually make a bit more sense? Frankly they deserved to get eaten. Also when a zombie got near Renchard's house a headache inducing alarm would sound which is OK but wouldn't a loud alarm just attract more zombies?
Like a lot of modern films I Am Omega has a lot of it's colour bleached out & certain scenes aren't too far away from being black and white. Why can't filmmakers just shot scenes 'as is', you know nice strong colour depth on proper 35mm film with grain the size of cannonballs. I fear those days are long gone unfortunately. There's nothing in the way of horror, the fight scenes are poor & there's a CGI computer effect when Renchard's house blows up that looks so bad I think I could have done a better job on my home PC. The zombies are all on set prosthetic make-up effects rather than the CGI of I Am Legend, they look alright but with the camera shaking around all over the place we never get a good look at them & they don't really do much apart from stand there & create problems for the character's. Gore wise there's nothing here, there's a rotten skeleton, a few zombies & a few bullet wounds.
Filmed in California the film looks cheap, it feels cheap & I found it pretty hard to sit through at times. The acting is poor, Dacascos is there for rent money while no-one else of any note appears.
I Am Omega is one of the most blatant rip-offs ever, it's nowhere near as good as it's original sources & is a pretty poor mess of a film all round. Some sort of plot &or explanation for whats going on might have been nice for a start.
Review by Paul Andrews from the Internet Movie Database.
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