se71

« Gross Point Blank | Main | Spiderman »

August 02, 2002

The Omega Man

Seventies post apocalypse vision

Charlton Heston is the omega man, or the last man alive after nuclear war and plague have killed the human race. He drives around an empty city, visiting the cinema, clothes stores, picking out a new car when he feels like it, and gradually going crazy from the isolation. He lives in a fortified building, and we discover that this is to protect him from a cult of plague victims still alive. They wear habits like monks, think technology is evil because it destroyed the world, and want to kill Heston because he is the last plague free man. They only come out at night, as the plague has made them allergic to sunlight.

Heston discovers a group of children looked after by a young man and woman who live outside the city. They seem to have some immunity from the plague. He tells tham that he is a doctor, and injected himself with the only antidote. They plan together to use his blood to make all the group immune, but Heston is killed by the cultists just before he can go off with them far from the city to start their new life.

This is an entertaining film, but there were too many inconsistencies to make it great. Sometimes the cultists were completely dazzled by light, and at others they could still move around and chase Heston. How could Heston have lived in that house for two years without either being killed by the cultists, or being able to find their lair and killing them; surely he could have followed them? And the other group of people just outside the city didn't try to contact Heston, even though they knew he was there. These problems could easily have been explained, but weren't.

One amusing part involvese Heston and a black woman. They kiss, the scene shifts to the next morning with the black woman is sitting naked in bed. She is talking to a clothed Heston across the room, but it's really obvious that they aren't even in the same studio. This was the early seventies, and mixed race love scenes were not tolerated, but this attempt would have been best left out.

AE 1

Posted by se71 at August 2, 2002 04:30 PM

Comments

Post a comment