Remaking classic films is always a recipe for potential disaster. Sometimes you pull it off (Peter Jackson’s “King Kong”). Most times you do not (Jonathan Demme’s “Charade” redo “The Truth About Charlie,” Sydney Pollack’s version of “Sabrina,” Gus Van Sant “Psycho”). The bottom line: If you’re going to do it than go all out. If you don’t, be prepared because outright failure is the one guaranteed thing you’re bound to find yourself flirting cluelessly with.

The better bet is to take either a good-but-not-great or good idea-bad execution feature and try and improve upon the parts that worked while ditching the numerous things that did not. That’s exactly the path taken by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney in regards to “Ocean’s 11.” They took the great idea lying at the center of the Rat Pack’s rather tepid 1960 original, fleshed it out, gave it some good natured gravitas and then tweaked it enough to make it entirely their own. Pointless sequel aside, “Ocean’s 11” was an example of how to do it right, and the result was a critically acclaimed box office sensation just about everyone could find a reason to love.

While John Moore (“Behind Enemy Lines”) is certainly no Steven Soderbergh, that still doesn’t mean he still couldn’t have followed the guy’s award-winning template when he decided to remake Richard Donner’s 1976 shocker “The Omen.” While it is certainly one heck of a viscerally entertaining fright flick, it isn’t like the thing was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Very easily it could be improved upon, and any other director willing to take a few risks and shake things up should have been able to see just that.

Instead, Moore and returning screenwriter David Seltzer (he penned the original) follow Donner’s blueprint as if it were Shakespeare. Sure there are some subtle tweaks here and minor changes there, but overall if you’ve seen “The Omen” circa ’76 then version ’06 isn’t just not very scary, it’s actually pretty darn boring, too. At two full hours it’s a mind-numbing, seat-squirming pain in the rear end, and while there are admittedly a good performance or two that isn’t near enough reason to make paying good money to see this remotely worthwhile.

Pity, because the central thread is every bit as unnerving now as it was back in the 1970’s. What would you do if you found out your child was the son of the Devil? How would you react? Where would you turn? Is your faith renewed, destroyed or created anew when this knowledge is irrefutably confirmed? Does anything you do even make a slight bit of difference? Well, according to Seltzer apparently not, all the characters (in both versions) completely powerless to stop the brutal design hurtling them towards bloodily painful death.

In all fairness, the bit in the graveyard with the rampaging dogs is scarily effective and there is definitely a macabre delight in watching former “Rosemary’s Baby” protagonist Mia Farrow fight tooth and nail to protect the life of the Devil’s son. I also liked David Thewlis quite a lot, deftly inhabiting the role of the terrified photojournalist so memorably played in the original by David Warner. He’s fantastic, riding that thin line between sincerity and parody with fabulous aplomb.

For everyone else, I got the feeling that this was a paycheck movie for and nothing more. Julia Stiles may get top billing but all she does is cry porously through terrified eyes. As for Liev Schreiber, I love the guy (and felt he deserved an Oscar nomination for another disappointing remake, 2004’s “The Manchurian Candidate”) but he turns out to be a pale, and not very believable, substitute for Gregory Peck. Pete Postelthwaite and Michael Gambon also make appearances, but they’re both so blandly forgettable you have to wonder why they even bothered to show up on the set each morning.

It goes to figure that the guy who remade “Flight of the Phoenix” wouldn’t actually show an ounce of creativity. I swear, screenwriter Seltzer is sitting at home laughing all the way to the bank, the only bit of writing required on his part coming up with a way to make the two main characters 20-plus years younger and having the audience buy it. Other than that, beat for beat and scene for scene this is almost exactly the same film start to finish, director Moore completely disinterested in doing something different or intriguing to make it stand out.

There is one bit of inspiration, and that’s the unusual Tuesday 06/06/06 release date. It’s decidedly novel, and probably more than enough to bring a few superstitious souls to journey into the movie theater. Of course, that being the case maybe I’ve discovered the most horrifying fact of them all. Films are made from video games, songs, comic books, television sitcoms and even out of conversations made in the hallway between 14-year-old geeks in High School. But now they’re being made, not to meet, but because of release dates, and if that doesn’t spotlight just how bankrupt for ideas Hollywood has become I don’t know what else will.