Written by: Andrew W. Marlowe
Directed by: Peter Hyams
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gabriel Byrne, Robin Tunney, Kevin Pollak, Rod Steiger, CCH Pounder, Udo Kier, Mark Margolis
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
At the end of the century, Satan visits New York in search of a bride. It's up to an ex-cop who now runs an elite security outfit to stop him.
Verdict
This has such a great concept that is muddled by the dated, even for the time, storytelling. This employs a few too many tropes, and few logic defying leaps to keep the plot on track. The story is more concerned with getting to the end that ensuring the ideas and plot points are well developed. The faults outweigh the potential.
It depends.
Review
This movie starts with some crazy sorcery. The Catholics determine when the end of the world will occur. It's 1999. From there Catholics and Satanists must find the baby that will bring about the destruction of the world. Somehow the Satanists have a better infrastructure to determine this.
Jericho Cane (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a security consultant that inadvertently walks into this plot. He's undergoing a tough time and the way the movie depicts that is too theatrical. Despite being security, Jericho decides to investigate why someone would shoot at his client. He does this on his free time, I suppose because he doesn't have a hobby.
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| Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kevin Pollak play Jericho Cane and Bobby Chicago |
Cane and his partner Bobby Chicago (Kevin Pollak) investigate an apartment that feels like a discarded design concept from Se7en (1995). My favorite part is when Cane finds a photo in refrigerator and asks Bobby if he knows the girl. In what world would Bobby know the person from a random photo in New York?
The dialog and character development is rough, silly even. I really like the idea that this underworld lurks just below the surface and is coming into the light for the year 2000, but this movie just doesn't know what to do with it. It doesn't help that the concept feels like it isn't fully developed. What were the satanists doing for the past thousand years? Were they just biding their time? I feel like that would hurt recruitment efforts. In this movie, a character is a Satanist if it aids the plot when the movie has backed itself into a corner.
I Googled why Arnold always has the same accent. I've never seen him change his Austrian accent in any movie, but Arnold has stated he can speak without an accent, but the fans expect his Austrian accent. It seems like an excuse. The movie could easily address this with some offhand comment. I don't quite believe that no one is curious about the origins of his accent.
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| Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robin Tunney, Rod Steiger play Jericho Cane, Christine York, Father Kovak |
Just as Cane's impromptu investigation is about to stall, and this is while he impedes a police investigation, he guesses the unwilling bride of Satan's name. A cryptic message "Christ in New York" must mean the person he seeks is Christine York (Robin Tunney). It's a huge leap, and the movie needs the help because otherwise the plot would stall completely. At this point the Satanists have known Christine's identity since birth while the Catholics had no clue.
Part of the problem with this is that it feels dated, even for late 90s movies. The concept is intriguing but the storytelling fails. I couldn't help but think how Constantine takes a similar concept but stylizes it while also executing it much better. Constantine was helped by being based on a comic which worked through the idea.
End of Days utilizes a few too many tropes. For the final battle Cane finds an armory somewhere with weapons that can't street legal. It seems his plan is to shoot the devil with big guns despite that not having worked out the entire movie.
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