Saturday, November 13, 2010

Watching Bad Movies So You Don't Have To: I Am Omega (Part Two)

Part two of my play-by-play/review of I Am Omega, Asylum's atrocious version of I Am Legend.

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When we last left our brave Chairman, he and The Stereotype were calmly chatting while Geeky Comedic Relief Boy was killing all the bloody zombie-monsters himself. The Geeky Comedic Relief Boy calls for help and climbs in the truck. Why he called for help is puzzling since he had just finished wasting all the BZMs himself.

The Chairman jumps into his car, but The Stereotype orders him to ride in the smelly, gore-covered van. As they drive (because there's not near enough driving), The Stereotype makes a bigoted joke that goes nowhere. When the trio are suddenly in the sewers, The Stereotype insinuates that The Chairman gets off on fecal aroma. Why, I don't know. One minute, the guy is decent, the next, a slimeball. Maybe this is what Asylum calls "edgy."



As I'm watching The Chairman, The Stereotype, and Geeky Comic Relief Boy bicker as they make their way through the sewers, my spouse is in the kitchen watching something about archaeological digs. It's hard to pay attention to the riveting action on my screen when I'm hearing sounds of lost cities coming from another room. It's far more entertaining and action-packed.

I steel my nerves and continue to watch this monstrosity. It switches to Antivirus Girl looking through a gap in some boards. Then she gets up and walks away. Wheee. The scene switches back to the sewer as the flashlights suddenly go out. The Chairman, now in total badass mode, orders a battery change. The Stereotype and Geeky Comic Relief Boy start mocking The Chairman and joking around. The Chairman orders them to be quiet or they won't hear BZMs sneaking up. Naturally, they laugh at him because it's not like they've spent the apocalypse fighting BZMs or anything.

Of course a BZM leaps out from around the well-lit bend of a sewer tunnel. There's a brief firefight, Geeky Comic Relief Boy is killed, and The Stereotype breaks into a murderous, badass rage.

No, I'm kidding. He sobs and wails over the body, then gets attacked by BZMs.

The Chairman starts sneaking around in pure badass, "special ops" fashion. So far, his shirt is still on. He spies a BZM pushing a dumpster and immediately dismisses it because BZMs using tools isn't a problem or anything. Then he proceeds to sneak around in a very realistic soldier manner. As in, the boring, real life kind, not the awesome, explosion-filled movie kind.

If I am watching a movie about bloody zombie-monsters and the apocalypse, I am less interested in reality than I am awesome, explosion-filled badassery.

My excitement over something of an action sequence is short-lived as The Chairman winds up behind some plywood, shoots some more BZMs, and meets up with Antivirus Girl. She watches The Chairman chow down on some trail food; apparently he hasn't eaten in days, except when he did earlier in the movie.

The Chairman is a little shaky, so it's possible he needs some more medication. Or is having withdrawal symptoms from his earlier handful of xanax. Antivirus Girl is not at all concerned about the fate of The Stereotype and Geeky Comic Relief Boy, supposedly her friends.

The Chairman suddenly gets all stoic and declares they can't wait any longer because there's only 12 hours until the bombs blow the gas lines. Apparently even though it took him half an hour to get into town (or five minutes of movie time), it takes 12 hours to get out. Also, he declares that the BZM hive seems as if it's called in reinforcements for some reason.

Antivirus Girl gets angry because no one told her that there were bombs and is irritated with The Stereotype for not telling her. The Chairman declares The Stereotype didn't know. Except when he did, earlier in the movie.

They go to leave their secure area, which is really secure with all that broken plywood leaning against the door. The Chairman pulls off a piece of plywood and a BZM shows up. Antivirus Girl freaks out and yells something about plan B. The Chairman informs her there is no plan B. At this point, I assumed when the "pull away the plywood and hope no BZMs are around" plan failed, they were going to stand there and get eaten. Did either of them think that plan B was to run in the opposite direction? No? Okay, then.

They finally decide running in the opposite direction is a good idea. The Chairman is confused. Apparently his map tells him how to get in the front door, but not how one might go out the back door. Also, he didn't think to explore the next street over. Guess he figured it wasn't important.

They sneak around, then almost give away their position to BZMs with an unfortunately-timed falling bottle. The Chairman's amazing special forces skills allows him to catch the bottle before it's too late! Not wanting to litter, like during his drunken escapade upfilm, he conscientiously throws it into one side of the dumpster. The other side of the dumpster pops up, Antivirus Girl whips out a gun to shoot it, The Chairman yells "NO!," knocks her gun back, elbows the BZM in the face and closes the lid. Antivirus Girl thinks he's high. He explains if she shoots the BZM, she'll get blood on her. She says "Yeah, I know." Just then, the BZM pops out again. Again, Antivirus Girl whips out the gun to shoot it, The Chairman yells "NO!," knocks her gun back, elbows the BZM in the face and closes the lid. I rewound the scene a few times and I think they just copied the same bit of film to do that bit.

The Chairman then tells her to grab a grenade, throw it in the dumpster, and run like hell.

Somehow, they wind up in a parking garage. They peer through the windows of a car and spy a group of extras standing around chatting. One is clearly an actor in a cop uniform, not an actor in BZM makeup. This would concern me as the police teaming up with BZMs can't be a good thing.

Okay, this is where I must unfortunately end this. The remainder of the DVD is impossible to watch as the video is all jerky, laggy, and pixelated, while the sound is not working. A little while later, the DVD just stops playing.

Yes, this movie is so bad, my DVD player rejected it.

Sadly, I will never know how it ended. However, after watching this for an hour, I think I can come up with a reasonable synopsis:

The Chairman and Antivirus Girl slowly make their way out of the city, past the BZMs. It takes them the full 12 hours because they do something exciting for a few seconds, then The Chairman hallucinates his dead family and has to keep taking xanax breaks. Sometimes, they drive aimlessly. All of this ends with them running away at high speed as the city blows up behind them. Fortunately, the fire didn't touch them, so they're okay.

They meet up with The Stereotype, who wasn't killed after all. Apparently, he spent the last 12 hours telling racist jokes to every BZM he was shooting. The three of them find a random vehicle and drive aimlessly for a while. Then they wind up at the survivor compound and The Chairman learns to love again. Humanity is saved!

The final scene opens with The Chairman sitting strapped to a chair in a mental hospital. He is visibly drooling. Apparently, he lost his family in a tragic Kitchenaid accident and went insane. He constructed a fantasy world in which he was the last man in the apocalypse. His supervisor found him at work, punching his time card over and over, while babbling that the radio didn't exist. After a brief rampage where he ninja-kicked all his coworkers in the head, he was taken into custody and committed to a local mental hospital, where he remains to this day, convinced the world is filled with BZMs and he's a hero.

Sad, sad tale.

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