Omega Doom

Director Albert Pyun and Rutger Hauer try their hands at a post-apocalyptic version of Yojimbo. What could go wrong? Everything.

There isn't a single thing to like about this movie. Albert Pyun is well-known as someone who can't direct; take a look at his filmography sometime. The man has practically designed his movies to end up on sites that specialize in reviewing bad movies. It’s a shame that he has no talent because he often picks genres I enjoy watching. Sometimes his movies are enjoyably awful. Unfortunately Omega Doom is just plain awful.

Rutger is present but hardly seems thrilled to be involved, and he's seen better days as an action hero. He’s not given a lot to work with in Omega Doom and he mainly just looks tired and old.

The biggest problem with the movie is that it is just another rehash of Yojimbo (although some would argue that these movies are all based on the book Red Harvest). That means that you’ve almost certainly seen this done better before—if you’ve seen Kurosawa's Yojimbo, or Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, or Django… even Walter Hill’s Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis looks like a work of art next to Omega Doom.

While I say that Rutger Hauer isn’t given a lot to work with, he does manage to make the rest of the cast look wretched by comparison. The dialog is piss-poor for everyone, but Hauer is about the only one capable of emoting at all. Perhaps this was intentional given the fact that everyone in the movie is one sort of android or another, but in any case it makes the movie really uninteresting to watch.

Finally, the action. Unfortunately there’s not really a lot of action, and when it happens it’s pretty lousy. The climactic battle in particular is completely pathetic. When it isn’t being edited to hell to try to hide the fact that Hauer has been replaced by a stunt man, the fight is being depicted on the wall in shadows. I wish I was kidding.

Even if you're looking for a bad post-apocalyptic movie you can do better than this one.  Not recommended for anyone.