End of Days

Where do you begin talking about a movie like End of Days? You mention that it is one of the worst action thrillers of the year, featuring a patchwork quilt of ideas?

You could. Or you could say that it's a showcase for Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting skills - or lack of them.

It's not a band film, just derivative. The plot is a weak mix of The Omen, Terminator, Jacob's Ladder and countless similar prophecy-based thrillers.

The story opens in 1979 and the birth of a child on an integral date. The baby girl will be pivotal in the clash between good and evil on the last day of the millennium.

Fast forward 20 years and we're in New York City.

Arnie is Jericho Cane - why do action heroes have such absurd names. Why can't they be called John Smith? Anyway, Cane is a suicidal cop in the Lethal Weapon/Martin Riggs vein drawn into a complex web of intrigue while trying to protect merchant banker Gabriel Byrne from an assassin.

Having tracked the wannabe killer down to an underground tube station, it transpires that the man is a priest, connected to shady, bald man of the cloth (Rod Steiger).

The killer priest's abode is a decrepit mix of warnings, his own tongue in a jar and a photo of Christine York - an impossibly goregous girl (The Craft's Robin Tunney) with a fascinating top lip which looks like it was sculpted by Mick Jagger's plastic surgeon.

Yes, dear reader, she is the chosen one. The girl who was born all those years ago. You have figured it out at this early stage, just a pity the scriptwriter thinks you're a moron.

Anyway, back to the killer priest. He's paid a visit by demonic Gabriel Byrne as old Nick. A fine performance by the charming Irish thesp. Nicely cast and full of confident sexuality and menace.

As Arnie and the rest of the good guys arrive, they find poor old killer priest has been pinned to the ceiling for no other reason than it looks good.

Carved into his flesh is a message which remarks of Christ being in New York. Thanks to a brilliant piece of deductive reasoning, our hero guesses it could also be a name. No prizes for guessing that Christine York is the name in question and yes, she probably has a middle initial such as Wendy or Wilma to fulfill the theory.

And so Christine starts getting accosted by cross eyed street types who tell her she's in for a right good seeing to from Old Nic before shattering into porcelain in a vision which would have looked great 10 years ago but these days looks as tired as yesterday's news.

Eventually, Jericho tracks down the targeted heroine and we're back into the familiar land of Terminator 2. You know the story by now: Heroine and hero on the run from an unstoppable killer who walks through fire and heals from bullet wounds without breaking a sweat.

Beelzebub decides to pay Cane a visit and the none too amazing seduction scene unfolds. We find out that the hero's wife and daughter were slain by gunmen and ever since, Christmas has been a none too happy affair. The horny one creates an artificial reality which shows Cane what it could be like in a scene which is a little too close for Star Trek: Generations for comfort.

Cane manages to throw the devil through the window and he inevitably lands on a car. This looked great when it was done in 1987's Lethal Weapon, but 12 years after the event, it also looks as tired as the hills.

Having fought off killer guardian Miriam Margolyes, Cane and York go through the explosive motions as a surprisingly inefficient Diablo incapacitates Cane, crucifies him and then goes off to impregnate Christine.

Such a tired device - leaving the hero to regain his strength for the final battle - is as old as the hills but after 40 years of it occurring in the Bond movies, just once it would be nice to see the good guy escape by the skin of his teeth and not leave the villain the satisfaction of letting him get away with his granted mercy.

And so the third act kicks in with the an inevitable feeling that Arnie is going to kick Satanic butt amid a series of one liners.

The inevitable showdown in a church is highly yawnsome. Getting armed with a host of impressive firearms looked good when Rambo did it in First Blood (1985) but here, you can't help but think of spoofs such as Hot Shots and The Simpsons' McBain.

The problems with the movie are legion. Arnie seems to be in a bind making movies the only way he knows how. With lots of muscle, guns and a few witty one liners. Except here, he acts like he's one of the living dead, throws himself around like a spastic rock star and delivers some leaden one liners. It's left to the far superior Kevin Pollak to dish out the laughs. Having a witty sidekick is nothing new these days. Esepcially for action heroes who take themselves a little too seriously. See also Stallone in Judge Dredd (Rob Schneider as cocky sidekick, Fergie) and Tom Arnold in Arnie's last great action thriller, True Lies.

End of Days is well made but a very tired affair which will leave most intelligent film goers yawning into their popcorn as an ageing Arnie tackles with the real demon: The fact that as an action hero, his end of days came and went. It's just that no-one seems to have told him.

As a result, the man once described as Clive James as a condom full of walnuts, will spend the next few years flogging a dead horse until he, like those other veterans of the genre Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, ends up in the video bargain bin.

Roger Crow 1999

See related features:

The Usual Suspects
Terminator 2
Seven
Stigmata
The Craft

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