(1999)
2
Michael Costello
After a three-year absence from moviemaking, Arnold Schwarzenegger returned with one of his more ludicrous forays in the action genre, locking horns with Satan to New York in a supposedly titanic Yuletide battle between good and evil. Peter Hyams is capable of making an interesting film, such as his remake of the classic noir Narrow Margin (1990), and his career has shown him to be a competent genre mechanic, but during this outing he seems to have misplaced his tools. Amidst the extravaganza of exploding churches, subways, and buildings, along with blood-drenched infants and dual crucifixions, Gabriel Byrne's charmingly seductive Beelzebub is perhaps the only evidence of professional-level skill onscreen. The inane plot, which features the typically wooden star in the thankless role of protector to a woman foreordained to be impregnated by the Devil, could only be unraveled by the most dedicated of Biblical exegetes. In the words of Rod Steiger as a scenery-chewing priest, "There are forces at work here you couldn't possibly comprehend."
End of Days on AllMovie
End of Days (1999)
