Anyone who tells you this is a good film either doesn't see many movies...or they own stock in TBN. For those not in the know, this is the "Christian" end-times movie spawned by the Trinity Broadcasting Network (that 24 hour religious comedy channel starring Jan and Paul Crouch as pentecostal evangelists so insanely bizarre it's hard to imagine they could possibly exist in any real_world....). The basic plot of The Omega Code is, well, too absurd to even go into. It's about the Antichrist, the Bible Code theory, and the end of the world loosely based on the book of Revelation. That's all you need to know.

How did this movie make it to the big screen? Check out an episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" a few years from now for clues. The plot is so convoluted and spastic, it's impossible to know what the frick is going on even if you're mildly familiar with Biblical prophetic theories (which is really what they all are). And if you are a Revelation buff, the absence of evangelical mainstays like the Rapture, the Beast, and the Tribulation may cause some confusion. Action scenes fly in and out like somebody accidentally hit the fast-forward button, and the special effects recall that made-for-the-USA-network TV movie from the '80s. What was it called? Oh, I guess any will do. The acting is about as good as a junior high church play. The only exceptions (barely) are Michael York as the Antichrist and two no-names playing the bad-ass prophets. The main star, though, is the laser printer spitting out prophetic codes (which can be found in our reality just by reading the Bible straight-up). Non-Christians are portrayed as one-dimensionally as Christians are by Hollywood.

Surprisingly, Christ gets hardly a mention in the film. There's a watered-down repentance scene by Antichrist-opponent Casper Van Dien and a bright light encompassing the earth at the end, but that's about it.

Some well-meaning believers will be quick to jump to the defense of The Omega Code by saying, "We need to support this movie so Hollywood will see that Christian movies make money and they'll make more." Sorry, but that's incredibly naive. If this movie did make enough money, I'll tell you what would happen: Hollywood would take biblical tidbits and make their own spiritual sludge like Stigmata or What Dreams May Come (wait a minute, they already do that), or Christian organizations would start pumping out mediocre films and create another monstrously irrelevant and separate industry like that of CCM.

The last thing we need is "Christian" movies. What we need are artistic and creative people in the film industry doing quality work that encourages truth, beauty, intelligent thought, and so on, in ways that people can relate to. Not mumbo-jumbo Bible talk and propaganda, which is all The Omega Code is.

I feel dumb even wasting my time reviewing this film. It's just a seven million dollar live-action Jack Chick tract with a few pages of theology torn out...and not even any cool cartoon artwork. What a strange world this is.
--Josh Spencer