End of Days (1999)

It’s the end of the world and Arnold finally has a foe worth fighting, The Devil. End of Days is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s next to last decent film of his pre-political career. Unfortunately, Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson have played the character of the wounded ex-cop to death and Arnold doesn’t have that much range to add anything to this role, and it pains me to say that. The story is fairly interesting and it does have some good comedy and its worth watching but by no means is it Arnold’ best work.

At the end of the century, the Devil possesses a man, played by Gabriel Byrne (Stigmata), and tries to fulfill the prophecy that he is to take a human woman, Christine York, played by Robin Tunney (Paparazzi,) and at the hour before midnight New Years Eve 1999, conceive a child and bring about the end of days. Unfortunately for the Devil, Jericho Cane, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger (Batman & Robin,) an ex-cop who is haunted by the murder of his wife and daughter, has to try to keep the Devil from finding Christine before the New Year.

Overall, the acting in this movie is not too bad. Arnold does the best he can with a role that not only has been done before, but also done to death and by better actors. I enjoy seeing Arnold try to do things that are different from the characters that he normally plays but if it doesn’t work, it can be depressing. I did like some of the choices he made during the scene where he and the devil are talking in his apartment, he showed that he could have emotion other than screaming and kicking ass. Gabriel Byrne was quite entertaining as “The Man”, as he is referred to in the credits, and it is noticeable that he is having fun with the part. Rod Steiger (Academy Award ® winner for In The Heat of the Night) was also very good as the priest trying to tell the thick headed cop what it means to have faith. If anybody had an issue acting it was Robin Tunney. Her screams were annoying and at no time could I figure out why the devil wanted to bang her, even when she was topless. Some actresses play the frightened defenseless woman well but not Tunney. I would have expected that kind of acting to be in a Scary Movie satire and not a ‘serious’ movie, well as serious as an Arnold movie can be. The comedic sidekick part was played by Kevin Pollack (The Usual Suspects,) and while at times he was humorous, he will not make anybody forget Tom Arnold’s character in True Lies.

I did like the story, mainly for two reasons. I thought that it was a rather unique way to make a possession movie into an action movie and not a horror picture. Although I would say that if there was a passage in the holy literature that said the devil had to take human form to create his spawn to end time, the devil would be smart to be a beautiful woman and then find the virginal male. Lets face it, what 18 year old virgin male would not want to have sex with Angelina Jole or Jessica Simpson. I guess that would be too easy. The other reason why I like the story is the whole Catholicism versus the devil and I am a sucker for that stuff.

The special effects were great until it was time to show The Devil in its true form. Master creature creator Stan Winston made The Devil and it was a very poor effort. It did not look real and it was almost funny, something The Devil should not be. However, the other effects were up to the standard of an Arnold movie. Especially entertaining was the train sequence when the devil punched a hole through the conductor’s chest and you could see his beating heart in the devils hand, very good.

Overall, I say that there is nothing wrong if you like this movie. It is clear that by this time, Arnold has his best work behind him, but he didn’t do anything he would be ashamed of by doing this movie. I do not know why his latter movies are not up to the same level as most of his 1980’s movies (I do understand that arguably his two best movies, Terminator 2 and True Lies, were in the early 1990’s, but they were very 80’s.) My best guess is that there was a lot more humor in the 80’s movies than in the 90’s movies (with the exception of the above two movies I just mentioned.) Still it is not a bad movie and should be in any Arnold fan’s collection.