Hiya. fenomas here, aka Weishaupt's twin brother, with a little holiday reminder: stay the hell away from End of Days. Arnold Schwartzenegger's latest vehicle is, as the Japanese say, "derivative, predictable, even boring; in short, fucking terrible" [rough translation].
It is hard to think of a scene from this steaming pile of a movie that is not inspired by or ripped off an earlier, better film. Arnold reprises Mel Gibson's role from the Lethal Weapon series, starting the movie off with a gun to his head and battling "personal demons." Kevin Pollack does a wonderful job as Tom Arnold from True Lies, and Gabriel Byrne, in a surprising twist, portrays himself from The Usual Suspects. Newcomer Robin Tunney plays someone or other, the most important girl of the millenium and designated recipient of Satan's seed, but who, dammit, just wishes she were normal.
Predictably, the movie starts off with a big action scene in the first ten minutes or so. Predictably, Arnold is a security guy, ex-cop, with a wise-cracking buddy. Predictably, Arnold is the only man in the world who can save Robin Tunney after the buddy predictably dies. Predictably, Satan offers Arnold the return of his slain family in return for the girl's whereabouts, and just as predictably Arnold finds the strength to refuse. And predictably, Satan enslaves or inhabits the bodies of half of New York to find the girl, but does not do the same to Arnold because the plot can't stand it.
The rest of the movie is a mishmash of Arnold's other flicks, except for the scene where a guy gets tied up like Christ and eviscerated (like in Silence of the Lambs), the scene where they look for clues in the creepy, dirty underground lair (out of Seven), and the scene where Gabriel Byrne takes a leak, then drops a cigarette in his Satanic urine, which burns like gasoline. (Remember in The Usual Suspects, which starts with Keyser taking a leak, then dropping a cigarette in real gasoline?) Oddly, somebody in Days says, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." Not only is this directly out of Suspects, but as a bonus, both versions of the quote refer to Gabriel Byrne.
The only real surprise I can think of from this cinematic bowel movement is that Arnold's accent has gotten thicker than in earlier movies, which makes all his clever banter with Kevin Pollack sound as smooth and unforced as if it came from Stephen Hawking's speech simulator. Oh, and there's one more thing I want to tell you about End of Days. Arnold dies in the end. With one minute left in the millenium, it finally occurs to Satan to take over Arnold's body, but Arnold finds the strength to chew on the scenery for a while and then jump on a convenient nearby upended sword. I'm not telling you this to be an asshole, I just don't want anyone to have any reason to spend money like I did on this colossal waste of time.