It is December, 1999. The new millennium approaches and the world prepares to celebrate.
Someone who is very excited about the new year is Satan himself, who has come to earth in search of the woman who will bear the Antichrist.
The only person standing between him and Christine York (Robin Tunney) is a former cop with nothing to live for, Jesu- sorry, Jericho Cane (Arnold Schwarzenegger).
This movie is more fun to write about than to watch.
Ah-nuld’s comeback vehicle after heart surgery, End of Days feels like an attempt to maintain relevance.
It is watchable, but there is underlying lifelessness to the whole enterprise that sucks the fun out of it.
In that respect it feels like Schwarzenegger’s last solo vehicle, 1996’s Eraser. That movie also makes two mistakes that this movie replicates - a weak premise and the wrong creative force behind the camera.
The premise of this movie could have been fine - Ahnuld v the supernatural is a natural progression from Ahnuld v Aliens/killer robots/electrified opera singer.
The big problem is that other Schwarzenegger movies make sure the viewer knows the rules for whatever antagonist he is fighting.
Most of the movie is a bland chase thriller, but the first act is a mess in terms of defining the Devil’s powers and weaknesses.
This is highlighted in the contrived way Jericho Cane is brought into the story:
Rather than go after Christine, Gabriel Byrne’s satanic business man is going to some kind of meeting. After Jericho foils an assassination attempt on him, he disappears while Jericho follows clues that lead him to Christine.
The next time we see Byrne he is walking the streets, heading to a meeting with his human contacts - it feels like some scenes were re-arranged, or there was a rewrite to introduce Jericho earlier in an action sequence.
Despite having a pretty straightforward longline, the movie takes forever to get going.
The movie also feels like Arnie trying to play more emotional material, which goes against the movie’s inherent ridiculousness.
Peter Hyams is trying to do for Schwarzenegger what he did with Jean Claude Van Damme in TimeCop, but there is a big difference between the two stars.
Despite his talents as an action star, Van Damme is inherently more earnest than Schwarzenegger. There is an inherent irony and a sense of exaggeration with Arnold that this movie completely ignores.
Schwarzenegger has a go but he is still too much of an action star. The attempts to make him a more tragic, fallen figure are just action movie cliches - the attempt at self-termination is a rip of Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon; the death of his family has been done countless times.
There is nothing original about Jericho, and having Schwarzenegger play him immediately draws attention to how silly it is. After watching so many Hyams joints, it is clear that he is not that interested in going big or cartoonish.
His movies are always lowkey - he is a natural de-hightener of high concepts. Sometimes that works, as in Outland, which takes a very blue collar perspective of life in outer space. But most of the time his movies can come off as unimaginative and limited in scope (Timecop, The Relic). I think he wants to inject a degree of verisimilitude into his movies, which is laudable, but I do not think he does it well.
Every time an action sequence takes place, it is staged without flare - even the montage of Jericho assembling his arsonal for the final battle lacks flare (or even music). The movie never feels as big and exciting as it should be.
The big budget also works against the material - sure, the effects are fine but all the expensive drapery just highlights how shoddy the script is.
Compounding this, Schwarzenegger is surrounded by a weighty supporting cast: Gabriel Byrne, CCH Pounder, Miriam Margoyles and Robin Tunney feel more indie drama than action epic.
You cannot go wrong with talent, but the presence of this ensemble draws attention to End of Days’s flaws - characters do things that make no sense.
Why does the priest speak without a tongue? How does Gabriel Byrne get inside Jericho’s apartment yet he has to walk everywhere else?
This is not a smart movie, but it has been made to resemble something more sophisticated - the muted colour palette and John Debney’s dour score feel more suited to a serial killer thriller or courtroom drama. There are a few times early in the action where the movie tries to create surreal imagery and a macabre atmosphere, but the filmmaking is too inconsistent and the scripting so lazy it never works.
The movie also suffers from a frenetic edit that destroys the geography and dispels any suspense. I have read that Schwarzenegger brought James Cameron into the edit bay to offer advice, and I have a feeling the choppiness is the result of the filmmakers trying to give the film more of a sense of energy and pacing.
Comparing End of Days with Timecop and Sudden Death, there is a deliberateness to the pacing of those movies that is completely lacking here. I have noticed that Hyams does favour extended shots in those movies, which does work against their pacing in a few places. While the movie is dull, it is also moving from one quick shot to another.
The one thing the movie does have working in its favour is Gabriel Byrne. While he does not escape the script’s inconsistencies, Byrne’s understated, venomous performance is the only thing remotely creepy in the movie. It is just frustrating that the film does not have a concept of the character and its abilities. By the end of the movie, he is just a supernatural Terminator - taking bullets and grenades, punching through random bystanders and not doing anything particularly unique.
It is hard to make an all-powerful being your villain, and maybe that is the ultimate failing of End of Days. Maybe it was just a bad idea to begin with.
In the end, End of Days is an underdeveloped concept, with the wrong star and a miscast filmmaker. It is an interesting mess, but not a particularly enjoyable one.
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