One thing I never understood about Damien Thorne is his character as a whole. Is Damien pre-programmed to be evil? Did his disciples and handler have to brainwash him to believe his God is the only God? Did Damien believe this stuff? And why does he seem to fully embrace his role as the anti-Christ in the third film when in the second film, he was a young boy struggling with his urges for good and evil? What clicked in him to inspire him to continue his plan for world domination?
And once he dominated the world, what then? Is he the one who rules the world or does he hand the duties over to the dark lord of the underworld? In either case, “The Final Conflict” is the final leg of the “Omen” series, where Damien has finally risen to power. He now runs the Thorne Industries and has no one to defy him. He’s wealthy, and powerful, and now he’s making a play to campaign for ambassador. Over the course of his teens in to his adulthood, the one lone Damien is now a man with an army behind him.
Not only does he have a handler, but a league of believers, many of whom are willing to do Damien’s bidding with his flick of a brow and a smile. Sam Neill is adequate as Damien Thorne, presenting a smarmy and very smug quality to the character. I would have depicted Damien as something of an unassuming man, but Neill is able to salvage his miscasting by making Damien likable. He’s a clean cut young politician with youth on his side, and he begins taking a liking to the son of a journalist who he thinks has promise in the evil business of destroying mankind.
As the followers sight a sacred constellation, Damien realizes the second coming of Christ at hand, and now in order to prevent it, he must murder the first borns of every family in the world. Meanwhile, he persists in dodging the assassins that have made it their mission to murder Damien and end his reign of tyranny. He does this in the most bad ass methods imaginable, first posing as someone, which ends in a confusing murder of an innocent person, and then turning hunting dogs on their master, possessing them in to eating him alive. “The Final Conflict” was not the final conflict as we witnessed with “The Omen IV: The Awakening,” but for a last outing of the original trilogy, it’s a solid last adventure for Damien Thorne and his evil plan to rule the world.
