It’s now 7 days into the new year of 2010, and all seems well. There have been no tentacle monsters, no winged demonic congressmen and a severe lack of cyborg dinosaurs. However, 11 years ago, that was almost a different story. Oh yes, you see, the world nearly ended as the onset of the new millennium approached. That was what we called the End of Days.
It is a few days before the new millennium in New York City, and though most of its denizens are fixated on their party plans and the dreaded Y2K bug, an evil force stirs beneath the streets. After a mysterious earthquake and series of explosions, Satan emerges from the subterranean depths, assumes human form and walks the city in search of his bride, which has been prophesied in the Book of Revelations. The woman he is in search of is Christine York, a twenty-year old woman who has been troubled by inexplicable religious visions all her life. In order to bring an era of darkness upon Man, Satan must consummate his relationship with his new bride between the hour of 11pm and midnight on the last night of the year (even the characters in the movie realize how silly this is, as one of them asks ‘Is that Eastern time?’).
However, standing in the way of Satan’s apocalyptic scheme is Jericho Cane (J.C., Jesus Christ, get it?), a former NYPD officer turned high-tech security guard. Having survived the brutal murder of his wife and child, Jericho is a complete burnout, an alcoholic on the verge of suicide who wantonly risks his life in the hopes of ending his own suffering. However, he finds a renewed sense of purpose when a mysterious shooting leads him and his partner hot on the trail to uncovering one thousand years of religious prophecy and the darkness that threatens to engulf mankind for all eternity. This, of course, leads to a showdown where the man with the most guns wins.
End of Days, which is as incoherent about its mysticism as it is about anything else, interrupts stretches of doomsday exposition with the inevitable chases and shootouts and beatings that are its raison d’etre. One character tears out his own tongue, keeps it in a jar, and eventually winds up crucified on the ceiling of a hospital room. These are the kinds of hints that persuade Jericho of the urgency of his mission.
Schwarzenegger’s limited range as an actor as Jericho is readily apparent here. The more emotional scenes of the film (where Arnold must act angry) are laughable, as his typical over-the-top method of enunciating every syllable comes into play, and the scenes end up coming off as more parody than pathos. Unfortunately, it seems that Schwarzenegger is really on good for two things: playing emotionless robots and shooting guns.
Gabriel Byrne makes as bad (and by that, I mean good-I think) a Satan as you’re likely to see on film, but it’s the groaner of a story line that will really grab you. To wit: Arnold’s ex-cop does some offhanded detective work that would put Sherlock Holmes to shame. His hunches are so uncanny … it’s almost like … like … he’s working from a script! ZOMG!
It’s not the idiocies of End of Days that are truly off-putting so much as the ineptness of their execution. After a career of relentless mediocrity, director Peter Hyams finally transcends his limitations to make something truly awful. Still, a grudge match between The Oak and Old Scratch must have seemed a great idea. And God knows the film’s $100 million budget is all over the screen in terms of top-flight (if overly familiar) special effects. Unfortunately, this high concept is plagued by an unsolvable conundrum: How does one generate tension by pitting anyone, even Schwarzenegger, against an Eternal Being such as Satan, who cannot die or even get hurt? Despite all the blood and thunder money can buy, the stultifying inertia of End of Days makes it clear that the film’s makers never even realized this was a problem.