With The Final Conflict, The Omen trilogy comes to a conclusion not with the bang it seems to be building up to, but with a bit of a whimper. Originally, we were supposed to get a couple more chapters between Damien: Omen II and The Final Conflict, but 20th Century Fox got cold feet and decided to do only one more film to cap things off.
The film picks up roughly twenty years later, with Damien Thorn (played by Sam Neill) all grown up. He is the head of Thorn Enterprises and now fully in evil bastard mode. He's good at turning on the charm in front of people, but behind closed doors, he is absolutely ruthless. The trilogy comes full circle as Damien is asked by the President to assume the post of Ambassador to England (the current ambassador had just conveniently (and violently) blown his head off in front of the UK press corp in one of the film's more shockingly horrific scenes).
Meanwhile, a group of seven monks have gathered and are plotting to assassinate Damien. Of course, since these are monks and not trained assassins you can imagine how it goes. Most of them are cannon fodder for more spectacular Omen deaths (including one fall from a bridge that still holds the Guinness World Record for highest free fall movie stunt and is admittingly pretty spectacular). When he's not dodging half-assed assassination attempts, Damien begins romancing TV newscaster Kate Reynolds (played by Lisa Harrow) and takes a shine to her pre-teen son, Peter (played by Barnaby Holm). Before long, Peter is being inducted as an apostle of Damien (along with the hundreds of others he's managed to recruit. Umm...well done?) and it's only a matter of time before Kate finds out the truth. She teams up with the lead monk, DeCarlo (played by Rossano Brazzi) to stop Damien forever and try to reclaim her son.
The Final Conflict is not without it's flaws. It takes such a giant leap forward from it's two predecessors that there are some growing pains felt. The film makes it clear it takes place in the present day of when it was released (1981). The problem is that The Omen also made it clear it took place in present day the year it was released (1976) bringing about the need for some serious retroactive continuity issues. But I'm really just being nitpicky (although it is apparent to most viewers). The other issue is pacing. The whole film seems to be building to the ultimate showdown between good and evil. Damien spends the entire film trying to head off the forces of good with no holds barred. He even orders his apostles to murder all the male children born on March 24th because that's the day it's believed the second coming of Christ was born. Nothing is shown, but just the idea that this is carried out is horrifying. But when we get to the big ending, it quickly rushes through it and frankly feels like a little bit of a cop out. Yes, we all know Damien is going down, but after everything that came before it, it just comes too easily.
If you're going to watch the first two films, The Final Conflict is still worth seeking out as well and for the most part it's a decent closing chapter with a fantastic performance from Sam Neill, who adds some real menace to the role of Damien. However, towards the end you do get the feeling they just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible and therefore makes it the weakest of the three.
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