MovieChat Forums > The Final Conflict (1981) Discussion > So much potential...but failed

So much potential...but failed


Sam Neil is such a great actor. He was really convincing in this movie. This film had so much potential to be great. But the plot was just so goofy at times. I think this film would've been better if Damien set out for world domination or something like that. Something really extreme. With Damien being the son of the devil...I just expected more. And plus, the ending was awful (super unsatisfying and unimaginative). The ending felt so rushed. Damien's death should've involved a greater set of circumstances. This is one of those movies where...I kinda love it...and I kinda hate it. Sam Neil's acting was the only redeeming quality about this film. Though, I must say that...the scene when the babies start getting killed...that was pretty eerie. If this film would've not focused on so much Biblical stuff, and focused more on Damien's reign of terror...it would've been a vast improvement. With a guy like Damien (the anti-christ), I would've expected his influence on earth to practically be like Hitler times a thousand.

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[deleted]

yes, i agree. Damien's death is so sudden. It's like Palpatine's death in Star Wars Ep. 6, Return of the Jedi. He is this great sorcerer, master Sith lord, totally evil, and he is using force lightning on Luke, ready to kill him. Vader picks him up, and throws him over the ledge into a chasm of the Second Death Star, and he dies. There was no great battle, no great scenes of back-n-forth bloody fighting. It's just so fast and uneventful, and boring. In this film, Damien, the anti-christ, all powerful, all vile, wicked, and evil. He knows when adversaries are out to bring him down. He kills them with ease. It took the woman who he JUST had sex with the night before to stab him with a Megiddo knife, and kill him. No struggle, like you see in so many movies, where the adversary is super strong and powerful, and he is fighting the good guy, also super strong and powerful Damien dies so fast. Totally anti-climactic. There shoulda been a bigger fight. When the time comes someday, when the battle of armageddon happens, you KNOW there is going to be a long, drawn out battle, between the forces of Good, and the forces of Evil. It's for all the marbles, for either the world to be saved, or the world to be under the permanent control of the powers of darkness. You KNOW there cannot be just a few minute end. It will be drawn out, for a long time! Maybe years, maybe centuries.

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