End of Days
(Click here for Internet Movie Database entry)

I guess it's appropriate that the worst movie of the year arrives on Turkey day.  End of Days is right up there with my other one bottle movies of the year, Virus, My Favorite Martian and Wild Wild West.  End of Days is supposed to be a retelling of the predictions of Revelation, with the End of the World being played out in New York City in the last few days of the Millennium. (OK. Not really, since it is set in December 1999) Satan (Gabriel Byrne) is returning to Earth and like most of us wants to have some wild sex on New Year's Eve.  But he also wants to get a specially selected woman (Robin Tunney) pregnant so that the world can end on schedule.  All that is standing between us and oblivion is a drunk ex-cop who works as a security guard (Arnold Schwarzenegger), his sidekick (Kevin Pollack) and a bunch of priests led by Rod Steiger.  This is meant to be serious and dramatic, a big screen remake of Rosemary's Baby, but it turns out to be more like Ghostbusters.  The audience, I was with, were uncertain at first. At one point early in the movie, when Rod Steiger explains that Satan's greatest accomplishment has been to convince the world that he doesn't exist, a woman yelled out, ``Amen!" in the theatre.  But as the movie went on, there was more and more laughter and catcalls from the audience.  End of Days definitely falls into the ``it's so bad it's funny" category.  The first problem is that Satan suffers from a bad case of Evil Genius Syndrome.  He kills everyone he meets including people who just bump into him on the street. But he decides rather than kill Arnie, he will crucify him instead and leave him alive to be rescued.  And on top of that Satan is so slow.  He could have caught Arnie and Satan's chosen woman several times except for the fact that he was having a smoke and then walking slowly after them while they ran away. Satan isn't just slow moving, he's a bit slow in the thinking department too.  At one point, Arnie finds Satan because he parked his car, complete with GPS locator, right next to his secret temple. No wonder he got banished to Hell. He's more like the Joker or the Penguin than the Prince of Darkness.  He is surrounded by hordes of minions who are even more stupid than he is.  Gabriel Byrne is nice casting for Satan and he has some fun when he hits town.  Arnie is Arnie and he's good at it.  This is his first movie since open heart surgery and other than the fact that he's supposed to have a perpetual hangover in this movie, he looks pretty good.  Robin Tunney looks good and cries well as the future Mrs. Satan.  Kevin Pollack is good in the sidekick role. Rod Steiger chews the scenery with gusto. There are so many problems with this movie besides getting the date of the millennium wrong. Arnie has it right when he hears that the important event has to occur between 11pm and midnight on New Year's Eve. He asks, ``Is that Eastern time?"  Obviously it will end in New York City!  At least there can't be a sequel for another 1000 years!