End of Days (1999) 1/2 star out of 4. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gabriel Byrne and Kevin Pollak.
MEMO #1112699
FROM: AGENT 999 (HOLLYWOOD BUREAU)
TO: SATAN, THE DEVIL, BEELZEBUB, PRINCE OF DARKNESS, LORD OF THE FLIES, ETC., ETC.
Sire,
Your plan to take over and rule the earth is proceeding smoothly. The movie, "End of Days", has been released and in it you appear so inept and lame-brained that mankind will be lulled into a state of inertia upon your return.
To review: A while back I possessed the soul - what little of it there was - of an executive at Universal Pictures and green-lighted a preposterous and silly screenplay entitled "End of Days."
As you know, it's the story of your return to Earth at the millennium to sire a child and thus begin your reign of darkness. Why you must impregnate a woman is never really made clear, but at least it gives us some opportunities to show some female skin, thus assuring us the young male audience.
To further our endeavor we lured Arnold Schwarzenegger back to the screen to play your adversary, a former cop turned security specialist named Jericho Cane.
Casting him was a God send, if you'll pardon my expression.
What better way to prove your vulnerability than by having the stuffings beaten out of you by the wooden Schwarzenegger. Forget that he can't act or that his emotional range is a wide as a matchstick. He knows how to handle firearms (throughout, he continually shoots you with an arsenal of useless weaponry), can throw a punch and can also take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. (Sorry, boss, since I've lived among the humans I've become addicted to their television.)
Plus, we had the screenwriter, one Andrew W. Marlowe, throw in so many obstacles and conditions that it makes it almost a certainty that you will fail.
For example, you have to impregnate the young woman while in human form and must do so between 11 p.m. and midnight on Dec. 31.
Of course, this is all piffle and nonsense, but it gives old Arnie a fighting chance to stop you - as if he could in real life. (Boss, you'll love the scene in which an old lady almost beats Cane to a pulp.)
And just to try stirring up some controversy for the film, we've incorporated a fanatical set of gun-toting, knife-wielding priests whose mission is to kill the girl before you can get your hands on her. If the church got honked off about "Dogma", this one will drive them over the top.
And the scene of Schwarzenegger as a Christ figure crucified to the side of a building will surely make those do-gooders foam at the mouth.
Oh evil one, I wouldn't lie (not to you, at least), but "End of Days" is so bad that it is almost comical.
To ensure that it is not taken seriously, I hired Rod Steiger, the king of overacting, for the pivotal role of a priest. Of course, he did just as expected. You could smell the bacon when he was on the set.
Also, we cast Gabriel Byrne, a decent actor, but not particularly a charismatic or good-looking guy to play you. No offense, sire, but the idea wouldn't work if we cast some hunk like Brad Pitt or Edward Norton as Satan. What young woman wouldn't want to bed down with either of them?
As they say out here, the movie will do boffo at the box office - at least for a week or two, just long enough to lull people into complacency for your real return.
My only regret, chief, is that we didn't plan for a sequel. But, who's going to need one when, right? To paraphrase a pop cult line from an earlier Schwarzenegger movie, "You'll be back."
P.S. Pardon my presumption, sire, but I just had a devilishly brilliant idea. Delay your takeover until we get the grosses. If "End of Day" does well, it will revitalize Schwarzenegger's career - and that will be hell on earth.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, IN. He can be reached by e-mail at bloom@journal-courier.com or at cbloom@iquest.net
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