preposterous religious action film ( produced by the trinity broadcasting network ) about a code hidden within the text of the bible that when deciphered will lead to the end of the world ( nice of those bible authors to put a doomsday code into the most read book ever eh ? ) .
michael york plays a millionaire diplomat who breaks the code and sets out to become god on earth and fulfill the doomsday prophecies , while casper van dien ( terribly miscast and giving an awful performance as a result ) plays the atheist motivational speaker who must stop him .
michael ironside ( great as always , despite the silly film surrounding him ) plays a fallen priest and right hand man to michael york 's character .
here 's some subtle character development you may have missed pertaining to ironside 's character .
now despite the fact that we see him murder a man in the opening scene , the filmmakers are n't quite sure if their audience will understand that he is evil .
how do they fix that ? make specific efforts to show that his character is the only one in the film who smokes !
there are lots of ominous shots of michael ironside smoking . . .
oooooo scary .
but even that was n't enough for the filmmakers apparently , as they later have to infer that ironside 's character is gay !
it comes out of nowhere and just makes no sense .
my main problem with this film is that , despite the silly story ( which could have been pulled off . . . anything can be made believable if executed correctly ) , the events of the film are n't shown with any sense of urgency or importance .
for example , at one point york 's character is declared chancellor of the world or something , and we see one brief , cheesy news report about it .
the movie keeps telling us that the apocalypse is coming , but it never seems that way .
there 's no " world reaction " to anything .
the omega code is available on dvd from goodtimes home video .
it contains the film in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1 . 85 : 1 , and includes the original theatrical trailer , a documentary on the making of the film , production notes , and cast and crew information .
the documentary runs about 25 minutes and is actually surprisingly good
( it looks as though it was made for broadcast on tbn ) , and it does a comprehensive job of interviewing practically everyone in the cast and crew ( with the exception of michael ironside , unfortunately ) .
the best thing about it is that whenever crew members are interviewed , they do an excellent job of explaining their profession and exactly what it is they do on a movie set .
most documentaries tend to overlook this .
doomsday expert hal lindsey is even interviewed ( you 'll remember his documentary from the 1970 's called the late great planet earth , where lindsey speculated that jimmy carter might actually be the antichrist ) .
however , at the very beginning of the documentary the producers of the film managed to get on my bad side .
when interviewed they actually have the nerve to say " ever see raiders of the lost ark ?
well , our film is like that !
"
no it is n't .
not by a long shot .
[ pg-13 ]
it comes out of nowhere and just makes no sense my main problem managed to get on my bad side oooooo scary silly film