Well, I’ve seen the Omen several times, so I decided to finally watch the sequel…

I have to say, this one is slightly less of a thrill ride. The pacing is pretty slow, and the movie relies more on stunning color pallets and gorgeous location shots than it does on plot.

Apart from that, I like that we got to know Damien’s character as he’s starting to grow up and discovering his dark powers. Johnathin Scott-Taylor’s performance as the 12-year-old antichrist is really captivating and heartbreakingly sympathetic at times. I also love that we get to see another huge classic actor like William Holden take the reins as the next father figure/martyr. Plotwise, I had to laugh because it’s almost like a very dark version of Harry Potter.

The only thing I didn’t like was that we spent so much time with “Uncle Rich’s” work and a lot of side plot-lines that seemed disconnected and didn’t really seem to go anywhere except to provide us with a body-count. The deaths themselves were also faster, bigger, splashier, and in the end more cartoony than interesting, because they had to top Patrick Troughton’s skewering and David Warner’s decapitation. I laughed at every cheesey death, where with the first Omen movie, I gasped. They could have trimmed all that and added more scenes of Damien bumping off classmates and teachers while discovering himself as a man to make it better. Like discovering girls…

I’ll probably go ahead and watch the Omen III and IV to see how I like the over-arching story, but maybe I’ll do it later.