Reception
The film review website Rotten Tomatoes lists The Omega Man as having mixed reviews, with a score of 59%. For example, Howard Thompson gave a mostly negative review in The New York Times, saying "the climax is as florid and phony as it can be." While the staff of Variety (magazine) described the film as "an extremely literate science fiction drama."
Director Tim Burton said in an interview for his 2009 MoMA exhibit that “If I was alone on a desert island I’d probably pick something that I could relate to - probably The Omega Man with Charlton Heston. I don’t know why that is one of my favorite movies, but it is.” In another interview, with ACMI, Burton remarked that no matter how many times he has seen it, if it is on television he will stop to watch it. He said that when he originally saw The Omega Man, it was the first instance that he recalls seeing the use of certain types of "cheesy one-liners" in film. The film is full of irony-tinged one-liners that are spoken in a manner to elicit a comic response. Burton compares these to the famous one-liners in Arnold Schwarzenegger's film career, such as "I'll be back." An example of this is a scene in which Neville visits a car dealership in order to get a car to replace the one that he had just wrecked. While speaking to the long-dead salesman sitting at his desk, Neville replies, "Uh-huh, alright, how much will you give me in trade for my Ford? Oh really? Thanks a lot, you cheating bastard!" At that point, Neville peels out, driving through what remains of the dealership front entrance.
Read more about this topic: The Omega Man
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
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—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)