If you think the final book of the Bible, Revelation, is hard to understand (and people have been struggling with it for nearly 2000 years) wait until you get a load of the last half hour of the apocalyptic thriller, "The Omega Code."
"The Omega Code" is too confused and silly to be much of a revelation, but there is no doubt that it is a tribulation to sit through.
Casper Van Dien proves his wooden performance in "Starship Troopers" was no fluke as Dr. Gillen Lane, a cross between self-help guru Depak Chopra and Rob Lowe. Lane comes to the attention of Stone Armstrong (Michael York) a philanthropist/politician who is using the UN to consolidate his power. Armstrong thinks Lane's pseudo-religious psychobabble can unite the world's religions, and offers Lane the chance to be his spokesman.
Armstrong's blueprint for conquest is the Omega Code, a cryptograhic analysis of the Torah, which supposedly contains detailed prophecies about how to rule the world. So detailed, in fact, the laser printer from the computer doing the decoding spits out the word of at least two characters' deaths, minutes before they happen!
Armstrong's strongarm aide de camp, the sinister Dominick (Michael Ironside in his stock bad guy role) murdered a Hebrew scholar to obtain the code; even though they could get most of it by just reading the Bible straight up! That would be too easy.
With bad acting, hillarious dialogue, and ludicrous plot turns that make this a future candidate for "Mystery Science Theater 3000" mockery, "The Omega Code" lurches ahead in fits and starts. It doesn't so much develop a plot, as leap from situation to situation incoherently.
Michael York goes from wooden to manic in a performance that would do an Ed Wood movie proud. And if he and Casper Van Dien are the Beast and the False Prophet, then one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will have to be redubbed Boredom.
Actually, the laser printer that delivers the terse, decoded messages like "Seven horns bow before wounded head," as though on cue has all the good lines, and may be the best actor.
Director Robert Macarelli is barely competent to stage a scene. His 30 mph car chase as the film's central action piece doesn't help raise the drama quotient any.
One could write some of this off to budget limitations, if the script by Stephan Blinn and Hollis Barton wasn't so witless and dull. Besides being Revelation-lite (we get vague hints of plagues and such, but no visual evidence) this movie contains a baffling you-were-having- a-bad- dream sequence that makes the infamous "Dallas" one look good.
Oddly, considering the movie's pedigree, there is no real discussion of any organized religious reaction to Armstrong. All of those involved in producing this flick believe that something called the Rapture will be God's way to take Christians out of the world; but either millions of Christian disappearing escaped notice, or it was just a detail the script didn't want to deal with. Others include drama, logic, characterization, and, most surprisingly, any kind of detailed Gospel presentation.
Combining the mostly ridiculed bestseller, "The Bible Code," with "The Late Great Planet Earth," this movie, produced by Trinity Broadcasting Network (seen locally on Channel 49) takes poor advantage of the current resurgence in interest in Bible prophecy. It beats the planned film version of phenomenal best sellers in the "Left Behind" series to the box office; but will not have audiences in rapture.