The Omega Code (1999)

When it was released in 1999, The Omega Code surprised Hollywood by scoring $2.4 million in its opening weekend, following a promotional blitz on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The Christian televangelical outlet, which funded this chaotic biblical thriller, had built widespread awareness among its viewership, and the film attracted an appreciative Christian audience. While it's true that The Omega Code offers a wealth of biblical prophecy that Christians will study for years, it remains a pedestrian, headache-inducing movie that's too busy "decoding" the Bible to make any dramatic sense. With a cast that could populate an Aaron Spelling miniseries, it's too badly written to inspire serious religious discussion, and not terrible enough to qualify as entertaining schlock. It's just painfully, pretentiously bad.

Rife with snippets from the book of Revelation, the convoluted plot finds a famous motivational speaker and "Bible Code" expert (Casper Van Dien) under the influence of an ultra-wealthy philanthropist (played by ultra-hammy Michael York) who schemes to crack the Bible's secret codes and take over the world. He's a vessel for the Antichrist (with snidely Michael Ironside as his henchman), and by the time Van Dien gets a clue from a pair of resurrected prophets, The Omega Code has jettisoned any pretense of religious importance. Rather than dare a meaningful examination of faith and the power of evil, the movie opts instead for cheesy pyrotechnics, hackneyed action, and enough bad acting to make Arnold Schwarzenegger's End of Days look like a masterpiece. Do you want to feel closer to God? Just read your Bible, forget about the code, and avoid this gawd-awful movie. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com

no no no!!!!!

it is just plain and simple.. I DIDN'T LIKE IT!! I have seen many movies about the end of times and so forth.. this was boring.. and it doesn't follow the biblical text as it is supposed to. March 27, 2008

Bible Code for the End Times

This movie is a suspense thriller about the discovery of the Bible's intangible secrets and hidden messages and the fight to control the world before the end of days. This suspense thriller take on the end times makes no mention of the so-called rapture. So this is more of a B-movie thriller. If you are a glutton for end time movies you will want to see this.

Casper Van Dien from Starship Troopers is the lead of this film. He plays opposite Michael York of Logan's Run and Michael Ironside of Starship Troopers. This is nothing like the "Left Behind" movies. The acting is good and it appears to have had some of its scenes shot on location in Jerusalem. There is nothing new with the idea of a code being hidden in the Bible. What is new is the fact that the Anti-Christ must solve the code in order to fulfill prophecy. Far fetched, yes, but an interesting premise.
October 2, 2007

It was ok

It was watchable but not inspiring. The actors seemed good, however I think that it lacked depth. The plot was based on bible codes, which might have had more meaning if I believed in them. Also it was missing a lot of other things that would have made it a good movie-such as a strong enough good guy (to counteract all of the bad guys that they had), better settings in some of the shots and much more Christianity. September 22, 2007

Christian views

Good movie but not so sure it's worth buying, I wish I hadn't bought it, but just rented instead. July 16, 2007

Oh. Mega-crud

OK, it's a here-comes-the-millenium, there-go-the-prophecies sort of flick. Micheal York is the grinning antichrist, but he's the only one I recognized. (The others may be happy not to be recognized.) This time, the oracular foretellings come from the bible code, that humorous exercise that proves that, once you get enough stuff piled together, bizarre coincidences become compulsory. Just to make sure that we really believe the oracle, it's a computer. We all know that computers are never wrong (or at least mighty hard to argue with), so the prophecies must be true.

And they keep springing out of the machine, with each one arriving at the moment when its message becomes dramatically necessary. I'm not sure how that bible figured out just which messages were needed when, since it was written so many thousands of years ago, but it got the times right to within about ten minutes. Dang, that's one smart bible. Not smart enough to deliver that final fortune cookie without the mysterious Omega Code being plugged in. Why biblical passages written in Hebrew needed a Greek code to open themselves up, I'll never know - but it just shows that the bible isn't just smart, it's sneaky.

Then, just when all the pieces come together, the movie stops. I don't mean that it ends, in the sense of having an ending. It just runs out of minutes and goes away. All we get is one final message saying, pretty much, "Have a nice millenium."

It could have been worse. That clever bible coder could have added a :) smiley. The movie probably had one until outraged theater owners started sending cleaning bills and orders for barf bags.

//wiredweird November 6, 2006

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