Robin Zhang - November 2nd, 2008 in Feature 0 votes Vote Up! Vote Down!

Starring Casper Van Dien and Michael Ironside from “Starship Troopers”, only much less awesome than that movie and with crappy special effects.

Before the “Left Behind” series, there was “The Omega Code”, another telling of how the End of Days might occur. Casper Van Dien is Gillen Lane, a world-famous professor of religion and motivational speaker who believes that the Bible holds secret codes to events in the past, present, and future. But even though he’s into aforementioned superstitious nonsense, he is actually an atheist because – let’s face it – no TBN fundie film would be complete without a conversion.

Being an atheist, Gillen is predictably not a good family man; he leaves all the child-rearing up to his estranged wife while he goes off on lecturing tours and eventually takes up a job as head spokesperson for Stone Alexander (played by Michael York, the guy in the old Three Musketeers movies), the leader of the European Union. Unbeknownst to Gillen, Stone intends to use the professor to find the last pieces of the Omega Code, which he believes will allow him to conquer and become God on Earth. As with any good villain, Alexander is aided in his endeavours by Dominic (Michael Ironside), an ex-priest who shoots and punches his way through any theologian holding on to any pieces of the Omega Code.

To accelerate his master plan, Alexander sends saboteurs to bomb the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which creates a new round of fighting between the Israelis and the Palestinians. With the entire Middle East on the verge of an even greater conflict, Stone then uses his diplomatic skills to forge a lasting peace treaty involving rebuilding the Dome of the Rock and a replica of the Temple of Solomon next to it. Stone then uses his political capital to successfully push through a “World Union” of ten global regions modeled after his European Union.

However, Gillan soon learns of Alexander’s plans by randomly hacking into a computer, and is discovered by Stone and Dominic; to try to woo him over, Alexander promises to make Lane ‘his prophet’. This enrages Dominic, who was under the impression that he would be the prophet, and he shoots and apparently kills Stone Alexander. However, in the hospital, Alexander rises from the dead and convinces the seven out of ten leaders of the world regions that he should be some sort of god-emperor because of his supernatural experience.

While he’s being beat up by Dominic, Gillan converts to Christianity in some random scene with a bunch of crappy special effects that just come out of nowhere… I guess just to indicate that he’s a Christian now. Alexander then proceeds to order his forces to wipe out the remaining three world regions that are resisting his rule. But just as he is about to give the order to launch the nuclear strikes and fighter jets, God intervenes and smites Stone exactly one second before he invokes Armageddon.

In the end, The Omega Code isn’t actually very dogmatic; it certainly has less political overtones than the sequel and much less prothletizing than Left Behind. While not exemplary in any way (although I thought Michael York did a good job), the acting was also decent unlike in say, Bibleman. However, that does not ameliorate the fact that there are several giant plotholes in the story and the sheer ridiculousness of where the director decides that Gillen Lane has to become a Christian again. Finally, the conclusion is never in doubt – again – because God is all-powerful and will always triumph.

1 out of 5 popped collars

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Tags: Casper Van Dien, Christian Movies, Gillen Lane, Michael Ironside, Michael York, Stone Alexander