End of Days (1999)

End of Days (1999)

7/10

Starring

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Gabriel Byrne

Kevin Pollak

Robin Tunney

Directed by Peter Hyams

No matter what the critics say, I believe this is one of the best Arnold movies I have seen. End of Days setting and lead character persona is not typical of the Arnold kind of movies we were used to when this movie was released.

The movie did get panned by critics even though I think it kind of broke even in the box office, what I enjoyed in the movie is the acting of everyone in the movie except both leads and that was what most people did not like about the movie too.

End of Days places Arnold in a sort of uncomfortable role in this movie and you can see the discomfort all through the movie. For me even though he struggled to place the role in the comfort needed to carry the movie or place the required feelings needed to make the movie stand out Robin Tunney did a lot of the heavy lifting and so did many of the cast.

Robin portrayal at first came off very annoying and you will wish she didn’t act as such, but soon she got on the way of making the movie memorable for me.

Then there was the case of the devil being perverted, I had no problem with the idea of making him perverted and loose, but the scenes which his perversion were shown were so uncomfortable and silly.

I believe the writers could have done a better job in the sexual perversion of the devil instead of placing before us some of the most idiotic sexual experience there is.

After Eraser (1996) Arnold for me dove into the deep end of crappy set of movies from the guilt tripping Jingle All the Way (1996) and playing Mr. Freeze in one of the worst movie ever and the worst Batman adaptation, Batman & Robin (1996).

End of Days starts with a scene at the Vatican in Rome, where we see the Priests and the Pope kind of panic and discuss the coming end of the world. This coming end will begin with the birth of a child which will ignite the torch that will in the end bring forth the end.

The devil has decided to wait two thousand years after the birth of Christ to impregnate a lady who will then bring forth the anti-Christ.

The path towards this requires a male, who was possessed by the devil or some sort of demon who walks about on earth kind of like torturing others. Waiting for the right time to come to have sex with his mate.

Their paths crossed with Arnold when he was hired to protect the male who was shot at by a priest, who also had the picture of a girl (Robin Tunney). Now Arnold is interested in the case, to find the girl and get to the bottom of the murderous attempt.

Even though he is unaware of the religious and spiritual things happening.