Patient: Megiddo: The Omega Code 2
Profile: Amateurish and horribly written, designed, directed and acted movie about the apocalypse that is nonetheless successful in that it makes the viewer yearn for the relative relief of having a hot pitchfork thrust up his pooper. Think The Omen meets Independence Day meets My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me at Matinee Prices?
Script Doctor
Symptoms: Megiddo producer Matthew Crouch, the tacky offspring of tacky's Alpha and Omega—Trinity Broadcasting Network's Paul and Jan Crouch—claims God “positioned this film to be the answer for a question we didn't even know would be asked.” To anyone who saw the steaming heap and then saw that it failed to vanquish even Mariah Carey's abysmal Glitter at the box office—$1.5 million to $2.4 million—that answer is clear: Satan rules! The question that TBN's viewers/donors—Megiddo's de facto producers—should be asking is what Crouch did with the $22 million he claimed it took to make this pile. You can make a really good movie for that kind of scratch, yet Megiddo has all the lan of a community-theater production of The A-Team. Cheesy special effects, actors emoting to a back row that isn't there, and a script that doesn't even believe its own premise. We're told this is a battle for men's souls, yet we're shown that the ultimate counterbalance to evil is not prayer or a good life but the Sixth Fleet and the Chinese army. We're told that God does not interfere with men's free will to either fight or accept evil, yet, out of nowhere, apparently on a bathroom break, God shows up for, like, six seconds to save the day. I guess all of this might have been overlooked if this drama had had a little more drama. A movie about life's ultimate decision is void of hard choices. Everyone knows where everyone stands, and the film is so concerned with the movements of Great Men it never really involves itself with how all this affects God's least and most cherished. Michael York as an Antichrist outfitted militarily in cranberry knickers, ascot and jaunty beret—along with his similarly attired June Taylor Dancers' Army of Darkness—is plenty menacing if your idea of menacing is Liberace! Live at the Joint Chiefs! Finally, the movie harps on how evil Hollywood is, yet it was Hollywood's despicable element that had the good sense and common decency to postpone the release of any movies dealing with terrorism or apocalyptic subject matter—both of which are addressed in Megiddo—in light of recent events. Crouch didn't, and he has apparently received his just deserts, to which the doctor can only say, “Eat it!”
Diagnosis: What does it benefit a man to bilk people out of $22 million only to have Mariah Carey make you her bitch?
Prescription: An audit.
