"The Omega Man" (1971)

Starring: Charlton Heston, Anthony Zerbe, Rosalind Cash, Eric Laneuville, Lincoln Kirkpatrick.

First, the Lowdown: The last man alive has to fight an army of apocalyptic albino fanatics.

I’m gonna sum this movie up quickly for those who’ve never seen it, then spend the rest of this column ranting. Robert Neville is the last man on earth. After a biological weapon unleashed its deadly payload on the human population, Neville is the only one who managed to get inoculated with an experimental vaccine. So he spends his days talking to himself, foraging for supplies, keeping up on his exercise regimen, and “borrowing” cars from dealerships. However, he is not necessarily alone because not everyone who contracted the plague died instantly. A sparse handful instead developed a latent form of Hollywoodized albinism (which bears no resemblance to the actual affliction) and a whopping load of paranoid schizophrenia. These “survivors” are under the leadership of a former newscaster who preaches a form post-apocolyptic Luddism that makes the Heaven’s Gaters look like the Banana Splits. (That’s right, the David Koresh of the empty earth is Tom Brokaw.) They hate Neville (and how could you hate someone as cuddly as Chuck “I’m the NRA” Heston?) because he reminds them of the technological world that was destroyed, and have regular rallies every evening (they’re albino, so that means no sun, right?) burning books and paintings and making feeble attempts to kill him that never work because they refuse to use firearms. While on another “shopping trip”, Neville discovers a woman who also hasn’t contracted the creepy albinism (and acts like Cleopatra Jones). She leads Neville to a hideaway in the country that is home to a med school student and a dozen kids. Apparently children have a resistance to the plague that eventually wears away as they get older. Having a new goal, Neville applies a little whetstone rhinoplasty and seeks out a way to extract the vaccine from his blood.

There are several unifying factors that occur in the Chuck Heston Troika Of Sci-Fi films (yes, I’m lumping both of his Planet of the Apes movies into ONE franchise). First, they never really hold up terribly well to the test of time. Admittedly, when the were made, they were pretty applicable and definitely creepy, but when the opening shot demonstrates the stunning innovation of an 8-track stereo, it’s applicability begins to fade a bunch. Second, they all present a fascinating idea and then eschew it so Heston can chew on scenery (Planet of the Apes doesn’t do this as much, but it is the first of the CHTOSF to be made). Third, they present Heston in a role ill-suited for his acting style. Both Omega Man and Apes have him playing a scientist, but I guess it’s the two-fisted variety you normally find in the old 1930s serials. (Soylent Green manages to sidestep this a bit by having him play a cop.) And finally, they manage to produce antagonists that are more interesting and intelligent than the hero. For a scientist, Neville makes a lot of stoopid decisions. (Example: he avoids the dark because that’s when the creepy albinos roam. So why does he go to an abandoned theater to watch a MOVIE! If Heston is the last hope for mankind, we’re fucked.) Matthias, the leader of the creepy luddites, has all of the good lines. And for someone who’s running a clearance sale in the crazy department, Matthias can debate circles around Neville.

Again, for those who don’t know, Omega Man was based off of the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend and is the second movie to do so. The other, Last Man On Earth stars Vincent Price and I’ve been told it’s quite good. (It’s in my queue so you’ll have to wait.) But brace yourselves, folks, I’ve found out that a THIRD adaptation is in the works. They manage to use the title of the novel this time, but it’s starring Will Smith and directed by the man who made the eye-rollingly mediocre Constantine. (At least it doesn’t have Nicholas “the Dolph Lundgren of the 21st Century” Cage in it.)

Line of the movie: “Definition of a scientist - a man who understands nothing until there was nothing left to understand.”

Three stars. Turn off that light.