Universally despised by
critics, and a few fans I've talked to (opinions range from "Fuckin A,
man!" to "That movie sucked ass!") I didn't have much hope for End of
Days, which is good. Lowered expectations usually mean that a movie can surprised you.
Usually.
Then there are those movies who do exactly what you think they'll do. No surprises, no twists, no special gimmicks to spice things up or add, oh, I don't know, originality to the proceedings.
End of Days has no big surprises. No twists. No gimmicks. No fuss, no muss. Arnold Schwarzenegger meets Satan, shit gets blown up. That's all I expected. I don't see what everybody's problem is. Just what were you looking for? Terminator 3? Phu-lease!
As usual, a commet foretells the Beginning of the End. It's 1979, and a little girl bearing the Mark of the Beast is born in New York City. Her mother names her "Christine." Like the car that kills people.
Twenty years later, it's 1999 (for those of you who flunked math). Disgruntled ex-cop Jerrico Caine (Dé Ah-nold) is about to eat a bullet for breakfast and make my dreams come true. I'm not ashamed to tell you that I was hopping in my seat, my hands dancing with expectation. "Do it," I muttered at Ah-nold. "Go on, that's right, you've suffered a traumatic event, probably having to do with your wife, life's not worth living, now pull the goddamned trigger!"
Just then, Caine's partner, Chicago (Kevin Pollak, "Mr. Bell" from The Drew Carey Show) walks in, earning him the name "Rat Bastard." Caine and Rat Bastard are bodyguards, and on today's itinerary: guard some Wall Street Suit or another.
Problem is, this Wall Street Suit is none other than The Devil Himself. You see, there's a little escape clause written into whatever spell is keeping Satan Down There. Every one thousand years, Mr. Scratch gets a free pass to roam the Earth. What's his plan? To get himself laid, of course.
Christine is all grown up now (grown up into Robin Tunney), and ready to bear the Devil's child. All her life she's had weird visions (usually of hell and damnation and torment and such--nobody has visions about flowers anymore) and now the pace has begun to pick up.
Through various incidents involving a priest with his tongue cut out and a renegade sect of the Catholic Church, Caine and Christine meet up. Not a moment too soon, either. Big D comes calling five minuets later, looking for some love. Some weird clause says that Ole Nick can only shag with Christine between the hours of 11 p.m. and 12 midnight for everything to work, so it's up to Ah-nold to keep Christine's pants on until 12:01 a.m., New Year's Day.
So, once again, the fate of billions of people rests on the shoulders of Dé Ah-nold. I don't know what scares me more: that fact, or the fact that writer Andrew W. Marlowe has a B.A. in English Literature from Columbia University. Yeah, that's right, a B.A. in English gets you a movie that does not have an original thought in its head.
Though I suppose it doesn't matter if you've never seen The Omen, or Rosemary's Baby or The Devil's Advocate, or . . . take your pick, man, there's millions to choose from. This movie was obviously not written for Arnold, and he kills any chance End of Days has to join its more serious cousins.
And yet . . . I . . . can see why . . . people could like it.
Don't laugh. That's one of the hardest things I've ever typed.
But, really, it's Ah-nold vs. Satan. And when I saw this movie in the Starz movie line up the little-twelve-year-old inside me couldn't help but jump for joy and clap his hands. Oh, goodie, goodie, goodie, stuff's gonna blow up! This is the same demented little boy inside all of us who's turned people like Ah-nold and Bruce Willis into international superstars.
Sometimes we don't like this demented little boy. Sometimes we shove him in a box and tell him to shut his damn cake hole. This was not one of those times. In order to watch this movie you almost have to let him out of his box. Otherwise this movie will be a very, very trying experience.
I mean, lookie, lookie, Arnold's playing an alcoholic ex-cop with a death wish and a traumatic past. Boy, we've never seen this before, have we? And just who is little Miss Robin Tunney? She's cute as hell (no pun intended), but can she give another emotion besides wide eyed shock. Please? Pretty please? Little smile for Dr. Psy?
About the only person who looks like he's having fun is Gabriel Byrne. Hey, if I were playing Satan, I'd be having fun, too. I'm sure Satan gets lots of joy out of his work. Mr. Byrne, though, plays a very smooth, subdued Devil, never becoming a Jack Nicholson impersonator that some actors become when they play Lucifer. For some reason, a sane devil scares me more than an insane one.
Probably the only saving grace here is the fact that this movie moves well. At least, most of the time. Occasionally, we have to slow down to inject some religious imagery (which feels slapped on, especially at the end) But director Peter (Relic) Hyams seems to know his job is to get a big gun in Ah-nold's hand as fast as possible.
And there's another thing. This is Arnold's movie. Shit blows up. When he goes after Satan in the final act, he comes packing a grenade launcher. The final chase plays like a slasher movie, but if you're still around for the final chase, odds are you won't have a problem with this.
Catholic Church or no, End of Days is still nothing but a brainless action movie. No matter how much religious imagery Hyams sticks in there, the sheer fact of Dé Ah-nold's involvement negates every attempt to make this movie more than a brainless action movie. There really isn't anything wrong with that. Sometimes you just need to turn your brain off and watch things explode, let the demented little boy out of his cage.
Or you could change the channel. That always works for me.
