(reviewed at marple 10 on Friday, November 26th, 1999 with jack, stu, & morton)
It didn’t matter if you wanted it or not, there had to be one. Just one, at the very least. What the hell am I talking about? Why an armageddon-apocalypse-countdown to extinction-millennium-Hollywood popcorn flick to cap off the first century with film and head into the new millennium’s uncharted territory.
While the studios did release two asteroid films in ’98 (Armageddon, Deep Impact), this year there hasn’t been a big budget millennium flick yet…until now. Arnold Schwarzenegger no less takes on Satan in End of Days, the newest balls to the wall satanic actioneer where nothing stands in it’s way from becoming one of the stupidest movies in years.
Schwarzenegger is Jericho Cain, even though they don’t mention his name until the climax. Arnold is a hired security guard who is wrapped up in a plot that involves Satan showing up on Earth and having unwilling sexual relations with a chosen female so that a demon spawn can be created and this in turn will create the end of days.
“With your last breath,” the devil, in Gabriel Byrne’s body I might add, says, “You shall bear witness to the end of days.”
So Schwarzenegger helps this 20 year old lass from being raped by Gabrielle Byrne while the whole world is against him, right up until the last possible second of the century.
I had a lot of fun during End of Days, which is a good thing because that is usually the reason you go to the goddamned multiplex, right? But…Days falters because while they were filming they realized they could not pull this off as a dead serious film. Why? Because Schwarzenegger hasn’t mastered an English accent yet and everything that comes out of his mouth sounds funny. Because of this, the producers added intentional humor with all of this brooding end-of-the-world brewhaha seriousness and it doesn’t work. None of it.
End of Days is your basic by the numbers action flick. It has nothing fresh or new and the script is downright horrible. The actual plot is decent and it’s great to see the first millennium flick since the excellent Strange Days, but Schwarzenegger and Co. add nothing new except a few casual laughs and a groan when the credits hit. *1/2
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