The third chapter in 20th Century-Fox's highly successful "Omen" series should have been its best entry considering its talent pool: actor Sam Neill from New Zealand, actress Lisa Harrow from Australia, actor Rosanno Brazzi from Italy, British commercials director Graham Baker, cinematographers Robert Paynter and Phil Meheux, both now members of B.S.C., and a third thrilling musical score by Jerry Goldsmith. However, it's just another tepid sequel in a series that peaked with the original, "The Omen" directed by Richard Donner in 1976. I had seen this film on its opening day in March, 1981, after having read the novelization by Gordon McGill from the screenplay by Andrew Birkin. The supposed final battle between Anti-Christ Damien Thorn and his age-old nemesis, Jesus of Nazareth, is reduced to a mere optical effect with the ghostly figure of the Christ hovering over his dead enemy in a ruined Cornwall abbey. After having wreaked havoc on the world in attempt to bring about Armeggedon through the use of power in his family corporation and his position as U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, you would think that Satan's son would not succumb to being stabbed in the back with only one of the sacred daggers of Meggido, when the method of destroying the Anti-Christ had been spelled out by the archeologist Bugenhagen (Leo McKern) in the series opener. The six daggers that fall into Damien's possession are needed to complete the task of extinguishing spiritual life. The dagger wielded by journalist Kate Reynolds is only capable of destroying the human life of the Anti-Christ. This plot development is brought out in the fourth Omen paperback, "Armeggedon 2000" also written by "Conflict" author Gordon McGill. (The fifth novel, "Omen V: The Abomination" goes into even further detail on this centuries-old ritual of destroying the Anti-Christ.) "Final Conflict" is a well-made film: Robert Paynter's and Phil Meheux's camera work is epically handsome. The Jerry Goldsmith score picks up where his only Oscar-winning turn in the series opener left off. I consider worth watching just to hear that Wagnerian-like crescendo during the fox-hunting sequence. Just don't expect too much from what is supposed to be the climactic battle between the strongest forces of Earth and Heaven - it's a whimper when it should been a rouser. The DVD and VHS versions of this film are currently out-of-print but I expect to see this film as part of a boxed DVD set from 20th Century-Fox when the remade "Omen" with Liev Schreiber and Julia Styles is released later this year.