Omega Code: indirectly to video
It is possible to counterbalance weak writing with high action, cool effects, all that. Look at all the American Ninjas, Gymkatas, etc, which, though admittedly lacking in story, are nevertheless fun to watch for all the head kicks and double back flips. Or, take Fair Game, a shoddy movie with very well-choreographed effects, which keeps us coming back to it again and again. Or Starship Troopers, which, as we go it to solely for the space bugs, tends to satisfy (i.e., has enough space bugs to go around). The formula is simple: construct whatever story is minimally necessary to allow all the cool effects. This is how porn works, after all, yes? It's about anticipating your target audience's needs and then catering to that audience. There's an implicit deal there, even, an understanding. Supply and demand; exploitation.
As with any 'implicit' deal, however, there's room for misunderstanding, the possibility that a movie will lure the target audience into the theatre only to show them a different movie altogether. Regrettably, this is what Omega Code does: instead of foregrounding all the high-action stuff as the trailer suggests, it attempts to supplant it with a reckless amalgamation of all the stories that 'should' work. Which is to say what it tries to make cool is the story, when we're not there for the story. And then, to add insult to betrayal, it's not even a good story at that. Or rather, it's a bad mix of, say, the religious thriller aspects of Seventh Sign (Prophecy, Omen, Stigmata, etc), the 'biblical code' intrigue of pi, and the 'ancient gadgetry' of Stargate, with a load of shallow historical references thrown in as afterthought (e.g., the bad guy is "Alexander," trying to conquer that world).
It all centers around Dr. Lane (Casper Van Dien; Starship Troopers, yes), motivational guru, world religion expert, Joseph Campbell wannabe. He's our hero, strutting into every situation with the same unshakable confidence Brandon Fraser had in the 1999 Mummy. As if he knows it's all just a movie. Soon enough Lane hooks up with Stone Alexander (Michael York), and together they remap the Middle East with not much more than platitude and gumption. After a feat like that, the world's easy pickings. In a matter of scenes, then, Alexander is crowned king of the new world order. Granted, the ease with which he conquers the known world is nominally justified by the fact that Alexander is clandestinely following his stolen Omega Code like a script--simply fulfilling the history-of-things-to-come as it's spelled out in numbers, in the Torah--but still, if simple foreknowledge were all that's necessary, wouldn't (James Bond's) Spectre have figured that out long ago? Essentially, Alexander comes to power the same way Biff from Back to the Future 2 wanted to: by reading tomorrow's paper. And that's been done and done and done.
To Omega Code's credit, however, it does fulfill a few genre expectations: the bad guy does have a foreign accent and access to all the computers; the good guy is having marital difficulties; all the women are stunningly beautiful; Michael Ironside is a somebody's henchman. And, as for the Omega Code itself, it's comfortably familiar, or, is something of a mix between the Omega Molecule in Star Trek Voyager and the Genesis Effect in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. All of which is to say there's nothing new in Omega Code, even down to it's attempt to play on our Millennium fears. It does have a 12 Monkeys moment, though, with the fugitive turning from a cop car only to find his face on wall of television sets, but that's hardly enough to save a movie that feels like it was accidentally routed to the theatre, when it in fact should have gone directly to video.
(c) 1999 Stephen Graham Jones, http://www.cinemuck.com/
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