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| Movies,
Richard Young,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F2
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The Millennium bandwagon. You can't avoid it. The Dome, the Wheel, the Falcon, and now Peter Hyams has made a film about it: Big budget action shocker End of Days starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's a brave stab at a different kind of action movie, tying together pre-millennial tensions, a new take of the book of Revelations, explosions, Seven-esque scary bits, and of course, everyone's favourite Hollywood man mountain.
The concept is that the devil himself has possessed the body of a handsome NY high-flyer (played with a sinister swagger by Gabriel Byrne) and he is out to score with one Christine York (Robin Tunney) who was born with a mysterious symbol on her arm in accordance with some fateful biblical prediction. Should they conceive on the eleventh hour, apocalyptic destruction, the end of days, would follow. Bereaved, world weary cop Jericho Cain (Schwarzenegger) manages to uncover this dastardly plan and makes it his mission to A: Protect the girl and B: Prevent Old Nick getting his end away. Sounds promising, but unfortunately turns out to be a bit of a hotch-potch.
There are not enough visual effects for it to be an exhilarating ride and not enough depth of either character or dialogue to have any real suspense or dramatic tension. I was actually hoping that Satan, the deceiver, would perhaps use his worldly charms to convince York that he was really an OK guy, creating an intriguing "how the heck will she get out of that" scenario. But no: Byrne is the baddie and no mistake. A lack of any real memorable moments or set pieces doesn't help, both plot and script seem patchy and rushed, the editing twitchy and impatient.
It's a movie in a similar vein (and unfortunately, league), as Prince of Darkness and The Relic, which was also directed by Hyams. At the end of the day, the End of Days is an expensive but disappointing firework, but a hilarious scene in which Arnie gets beaten up by Miriam Margolyes is worth staying awake for.
UK rating:
15
US rating:
R
Peter Hyams1999 USA
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robin Tunney, Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Pollak and Rod Steiger
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