[Nicolai P. Zwar]

THE FINAL CONFLICT is not a good film, but it allowed Neill to play a delicious evil character (he would go all-out evil operatic in the finale of EVENT HORIZON, also a job well done). And it has a fabulous Jerry score, of course. Worth it for those two things alone.

Yes, THE FINAL CONFLICT is a bad film, but it’s a bad film because of a bad script (by Andrew Birkin, who went on to write much better screenplays), which was probably the result of a production that was way too small scale for its subject. Pure potboiler sequel. However, Sam Neill’s performance, Jerry Goldsmith’s score, and the photography were all excellent. Incidentally, this was probably the first movie with Sam Neill I ever saw.