End of Days: the usual suspects
On one side, there's Satan himself, still trying to murder the world, and on the other there's an unbeliever, who just happens to be the only one with half a chance to save that world. We've seen the story again and again and again, and the creators of End of Days had to be aware of this. So, they improvised, first with timing, (millennium fears etc) second with big-name stars, (Schwarzenegger, Byrne, Steiger), and third with attempting to co-opt the religious thriller into the high-action genre, which--as one doesn't require guns to save the day and the other does--doesn't work very well, or, results in the hero, 'Jericho Cane,' (Schwarzenegger, yes) having to tell the devil (Gabriel Byrne, in an evil Christopher Walkenish role) to 'go to hell.' Not the most original line, but then fending off the apocalypse with hot lead is hard work, and perhaps all the creative effort went into the old testament pyrotechnics instead of the writing anyway.
Aside from all the divine firepower, though, End of Days does try to be different in another way, by playing particularly fast and loose with Revelations, biblical prophecy, all that, mixing it up until existence as we know it depends upon the devil not jumping in the sack with one Christine York (Robin Tunney). Most near-apocalyptic movies concern themselves either with the birth or the rise of the Antichrist or some Antichrist-figure; End of Days, instead of organizing itself around efforts to prevent that birth and/or rise, concerns itself with preventing the initial conception. And of course Christine York doesn't really want to play Vanessa Williams to Schwarzenegger's Eraser, but neither does she want to have sex with the devil. Which means that for most of the movie, they're two scant steps ahead of perdition, running both from Satan and from the Catholic church. It makes for some high-action, Terminator II kind of stuff, except now the T1000 is supernatural. In all the other aspects, though, it matches up, even the end.
What End of Days has going for it finally is A) Byrne; B) Kevin Pollak and his complement of "It's official: I'm never sleeping again" lines; and C) Schwarzenegger, the original Commando, still playing the Conan we'd pay to see again and again. What it doesn't have going for it is that for much of the movie, Jericho thinks he's a burned-out Martin Riggs (Lethal Weapon), complete with deathwish and all. Too, there's a lot of fumbling over the whole problem of evil question, which is best left for other movies--say, Dogma. It does actually have one strong line--about the greatest trick the devil ever pulled--but perhaps Pollak or Byrne brought that with them from The Usual Suspects, so it doesn't really count. Of the recent spate of millennium movies, however, (discounting Entrapment) End of Days is, in spite of its problems, still miles ahead of Omega Code, and even slightly better than Stigmata, if only because, where Stigmata seemed to have preaching on its agenda, all End of Days was after was entertainment, plain and simple. Good old-fashioned noise and lights, the standard-issue patch for weak writing. End of Days has nearly a patch a scene.
(c) 1999 Stephen Graham Jones, http://www.cinemuck.com/
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