Good Omens is both an Amazon video series written by Neil Gaiman and a novella written by Gaiman.
0 out of 10 stars. With so many good series getting ignored, it’s sad that Amazon chose to hype this one.
Basically this is the plot from the 1976 film THE OMEN with Gregory Peck. That story is about an American ambassador’s wife who gives birth to their son while traveling through Romania and unknown to the couple their child is murdered while the anti-christ is given to them instead. They name him Damien. You’ve probably heard this plot before because it’s been copied ad nauseum over the decades.
In Good Omens, the switch of the American ambassador’s baby with the anti-christ goes awry and he ends up with a normal British couple under the name Adam Young. Everyone thinks he is the American ambassador’s son Warlock (he ignored the nun’s suggestion of Damien). An angel named Aziraphale (a misspelling of the Islaamic angel Israfel) and a demon named Crowley (after Aleister Crowley the famous pagan) decide to stop armageddon, which is to occur when the anti-christ reaches age 11, by becoming Warlock’s godparents and teaching him. Crowley becomes the child’s nanny and Aziraphale becomes the gardener. Only when Warlock turns 11 and the hell hound doesn’t show up do they realize this entire time they’ve been tutoring the wrong kid.
In episode 1 there’s heavy narration from a female God telling the viewer how the world really began. In episode 2 there’s more heavy narration from the female God talking about the four horsemen of the apocalypse (war, pollution, famine, and death). I was too bored to watch any more.
In addition to most of the plot being taken from another film (THE OMEN 1976) and religious history, there’s way too much narration and loud campy music. It’s a very British series, so what they find funny is certainly not what I find funny. I certainly wasn’t entertained and my family kept asking if we’d watched enough to watch something else. That’s never a good thing.
With so many really good series looked over without another thought, I was really shocked to see this boring one get such rave reviews. I have to wonder how many of them were involved in the series.
BTW, the screenplay comes from the novella by Neil Gaiman who calls himself a Jewish Scientologist. I guess that explains the irreverent misuse of religious history and references.
A better title for this would’ve been Monty Python meets The Omen.
0 out of 10 stars. My entire family was bored to tears. Clearly this is a case of Amazon hyping something so much people wanted to watch it just to be a part of the hype. 🙁
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