I AM OMEGA was a direct-to-video film rushed out to take advantage of the Will Smith vehicle. There are differing thoughts on whether it ripped off Matheson. Matthew Bradley, of BRADLEY ON FILM, and I have discussed it in the past and he doesn’t think so. I hadn’t seen it back then and couldn’t disagree. He’s much more well versed on that subject than I am, but after finally catching it, in my mind, it does rip off the novel with no acknowledgment to Matheson. To be sure, it veers wildly away from the novel. But it’s there. Some other reviews of the film I found don’t think so either. Obviously not readers, they don’t seem to realize there was even a novel that came before, calling it a rip-off of both THE OMEGA MAN and Smith’s I AM LEGEND.
A man alone, Renchard(Mark Dacosco of Iron Chef note) barricades himself in his home at night, eating food and conversing with a mannequin setting across from him. A woman, Brianna(Jennifer Lee Wiggins), trapped in the city and needing help. She carries an immunity to the virus. A couple of rednecks, Vincent(Geoff Mead, who also doubles as screen writer) and Mike(Ryan Lloyd) who force Renchard to rescue Brianna. They are not what they seem.
Renchard seems a man not wound real tight. One supposes what he’s gone through has unhinged him a bit. He seems to have illusions quite frequently and we see one scene where he’s eating some sort of pills like Pez, one after another, no explanation, no apparent effect. He’s planting huge bundles of plastique with timers around the city and in the sewers near gas lines, securing them with duct tape(a supremely versatile invention). he’s planning to blow up the city.
The victims of this virus are more zombie-like than vampire types and are extremely active, fast. They have a ridge of bony extrusions running down their spines. They come out day or night. Very easily taken out, gun(automatic weapons, shotguns, handguns), machetes, just plain out martial arts(Dacosco is a martial artist of note and shows his abilities throughout the movie, wasting time in one sequence to show off his abilities with nunchaku, more popularly nunchucks, instead of just escaping in the car. And despite the DVD cover, we never see more than a handful of these zombies at any one time(the IMDb entry has ten names in the credits listed as various zombies).
Plenty of goofs in continuity, which usually happens in rush jobs. A car pointed in one direction when Renchard enters a building, the other when he emerges. Closing garage doors
when he leaves, but standing open when the car goes by. Renchard carries a Heckler & Koch MP5. A couple of close-ups of a weapon firing are of an AR15 type weapon. He’s supposed to in an alley in the city and those close-ups are in a forest. The city is supposed to be L.A., but in the alley scene a dumpster has City of Oxnard stenciled on it.
And no where in this thing is any attempt made to explain the virus, what happened, any efforts made to combat it. Just nonsensical scenes of a lot of martial arts action.
The car Renchard drives early in the movie and the convertible Brinna and he choose in the parking garage are 1975 Oldsmobile Omegas(heh). The convertible is a problem because the model didn’t come in that style(converted i suppose). Renchard keeps saying they need a stick shift because all the batteries would be dead and they’d need to push it off(makes sense). But Brianna wants the convertible and bullies him into trying it. Lo and behold it works with his hot-wiring, just long enough for them to back out. Then it goes dead and we’re treated to one of those scenes we’ve seen a thousand times. The zombies are closong in while our hero tries desperately to crank the recalcitrant car, getting it going at the last second. Then stupidity sets in. Instead of leaving, Renchard jumps out with his nunchucks and starts fighting with them.
A giant plot hole is the two rednecks forcing Ranchard to help rescue Brianna. They know about him planting the explosives around the city and why. They’ve been watching him. Brianna was headed for Antioch, an enclave of unaffected humans and the pair of rednecks claim to be from there. Then at the end, Vincent plans to kill her to prevent a antivirus from being made. He’s happy with the world, survival of the fittest, weeding out the sick, the handicapped, and the weak. What then would be the point in rescuing Brianna, losing his buddy in the process.
The script has such pithy lines as “Another day, another dollar.” while paying the dead store owner when getting supplies and, while taking a leak, “I’m pissing on the world!”
This can’t be to long after the apocalypse as the infrastructure seems to be working quite nicely. Renchard has a laptop that functions, so the internet is still up. In fact,
that’s how he makes contact with Brianna. He keep getting a message coming in signal that he thinks might be his mind at work at first. The city seems to be very clean. A couple of alley scenes show trash strewn around, but long shots down a street look very nice. Just empty of people.
The folks responsible for this are known as The Asylum, an outfit that specialize these low budget efforts to confuse people and bleed a few dollars from unsuspecting people for higher budgeted movies. They are known for such efforts as Transmorphers, Supercroc(Bill’s probably seen this one), and Snakes On A Plane. Despite all I said, I AM OMEGA was not the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Wouldn’t recommend it though.
For much better overlooked movies, check out Todd Mason over at Sweet Freedom on Tuesdays.
For those interested, here’s the movie on Youtube.
Not The Baseball Pitcher 
Well, there are worse things than contemplating Jennifer Lee Wiggins…such as watching this film with DVI-style descriptions in French (as on the YT version)…or perhaps watching it at all, indeed. I should check to see if The Asylum isn’t the “studio” that Universal Pictures is suing…while their SyFyilis Channel corporate sybling is one of the defendant’s most important customers…
Ms Wiggins was about the only good thing about this one. As I said, I’ve seen worse(not the good kind of worse), but it’s not one I ever want to re-watch.
I’m a fan of OMEGA MAN, another film based on Richard Matheson’s I AM LEGEND.
I’ve seen all four takes on Matheson’s book, an old favorite, and didn’t really care for any.
Certainly sounds intriguing and stupid Randy! I am always amused to read about these movies that really do aim to cash in on another film by sneaky indirection but have yet to actually watch one. I think I’ll give this one a miss though, not least because I wasn’t that crazy about the Will Smith movie of the book either. I re-read Matheson’s original not to long ago and mostly it stands up until the slightly daft finish (which Damon Knight really went to town on in his critique at the time). But then Matheson has never been averse to the off homage, such as HELL HOUSE for instance which is really a bit too similar to THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE though is still a pretty damn good book. That’s another case (the Shirley Jackson I mean) where the original movie is really strong and the later remake pretty blah!
I’ve never understood Hollywood’s remaking so many of the classics. I do know it’s a money thing, but why not make some new classics.
I really agree – there are some really good examples of remakes in my opinion that really work, like Huston’s THE MALTESE FALCON, De Palma’s SCARFACE and Soderbergh’s OCEAN’S ELEVEN for instance, but mostly it is a mentality that oozes artistic timidity and craven commercialism. I feel dirty just thinking about it!
The difference with THE MALTESE FALCON was that both previous efforts could hardly be considered classics. SCARFACE, both versions, I like pretty much. OCEAN”S ELEVEN was a good also, then they spoiled it by Twelve and Thirteen.
Hi, Randy. Thanks for the shout-out. I suppose I should make my position on I AM OMEGA a tad clearer. The title alone, and its provenance from The Asylum, make it pretty undeniable that the film is a rip-off of Matheson’s I AM LEGEND and such film versions as THE OMEGA MAN. What I believe I said was that I don’t consider it to be an uncredited adaptation of the novel in the way that, let’s say, Larry Buchanan’s “IT’S ALIVE!” is an uncredited adaptation of Matheson’s story “Being.” Despite the obvious similarities–and there are many–there are also enough differences that I AM OMEGA is nowhere near a one-to-one correspondence with I AM LEGEND. If it had been, I’m sure that Warner Brothers would have had a flock of lawyers descend on The Asylum before they knew what hit them! But is it a rip-off, and abysmal to boot? Hell, yeah…
Probably did misunderstand you before. You certainly are more versed in the film arts than myself. We do agree that it was awful with a capital A.