Sunday, June 25, 2006
The Omega Man (1971)
Charlton Heston escapes from the Planet of the Apes (1968) only to crash land in a deserted Los Angeles, following some kind of nuclear/plague apocalypse. He's the only dude around, long as you don't count that torch-carrying, monk-robed band of mutated survivors who call themselves "the Family" (no relation to the Mansons), and you might as well not, because they blame Heston for the whole nuclear/plague-apocalypse-thing, and are hell-bent on rewarding him with some old fashioned murder. But, thanks to the plague-thing, they can only emerge at night, so Heston can spend the daylight hours joyriding in hotwired Mustang convertibles and looting stores for fashionable track suits. Sundown, he holes up in a fortified brownstone and plays chess with a concrete bust of Caesar while the Family taunts him from the streets below; tip o' the hat to the NRA as Heston occasionally opens a window and answers with sub-machine gun fire. Damn dirty apes, no matter where you go. Based on Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, but without proper vampires or amazing ironic twist ending (nor even Vincent Price) this is a sour, defeatist exercise, especially when the third act turns up a small clutch of other human survivors who seem to exist only so they can screw up their chances. Cold dead hands, indeed.
What the "twist" ending of the original material??I HAVE TO KNOW!
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