End of Days is one of the worst big-budget action movies I've ever seen. Muddling direction, meandering script loaded with lame dialogues and gaping plot holes, rapid-fire MTV-style editing and poor acting all the way.

That's not to say End of Days isn't watchable. The movie kept me interested because I found Ah-nuld's latest action flick laughably stupid for being so inept and silly when it comes to logic. Without the sense of logic the movie dies quicker, which is why End of Days deserved a huge drop of box office reception in its second week after the opening in the U.S.

I won't go into the details explaining why End of Days violates the law of movie logic, but here are several problems with this movie:

(SPOILER)

After the Devil walks out, the restaurant explodes without any trace as to how he did it. No snapping finger, no tampered energy gas to ignite the fire, nothing. How could this happen?

Arnold and his annoying sidekick Kevin Pollack somehow magically comes up with the name "Christine York" after examining the phrase "Christ in New York" carved on a victim's body, runs the database on the computer and, viola, Christine York, the only person with the exact name in all of New York City! Beyond my suspension of disbelief. 

How did the characters who have come in contact with Arnold's character turn against him later in the movie? I laughed out loud when I recognized the good-stepmother-turned-evil-stepmother is the same actress who played a nanny in William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet. Her ironic transition from that film to this was absolutely hilarious if you can imagine.

All the mindlessly huge explosions and gunfires. What did you expect in the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle?

The Devil took a man's body comprising of flesh and blood, yet he's invisible to bullets and explosions by healing through that body. Logically, this is impossible.

As the Devil demostrates the illusion in the apartment, Arnold's character runs into the solid Christmas tree that supposedly is an illusion and *falls on it* physically.

The Devil is capable of punching the person's brains out and twisting a victim's head 180 degree, yet he could not kill Arnold's character as he always intends to.

How the Devil's object of desire's parents died and why evil New Yorkers run after Arnold and the object of desire were never explained at all.

In the sequence that's a rip-off of Speed, Arnold and the Devil's object of desire manage to escape the subway train wreck by the short distance inside unscathed. This is beyond my comprehension, since the force would be enough to throw Arnold and the object of desire around violently and die from fatal wounds seconds after impact.

Arnold suffers the brutal beating from the mob sanctioned by the Devil and put him on the cross to hang against the wall, yet the Devil forgot to take the time and opportunity to kill him for convenience's sake.

At the beginning of the movie, after the Devil took over a man's body, all of a sudden Arnold is his bodyguard??? Is this a coincidence or just an example of bad editing?

Arnold's recital of cringe-inducing dialogues in the particularly laughable scenes like "YOU ARE A CHOIRBOY COMPARED TO ME!" are the perfect fodder for MST3K, just as Eraser did with the classic line "You're the luggage!".

The whole theory about 666/1999 is downright ludicrous. So are the pseudo-religious babble about the Christian theology involving the end of the world at precisely midnight and the fanatic killers who know the location of the Devil's object of desire. 

(END SPOILERS)

It is highly ironic that End of Days uses the scattered profanities abusing the deity while rambling about Christian theories. The level of violence in the film is excessive and gruesome, and is therefore unnecessary to serve the plot. The director's indulgence of excess is a factor here. He surely doesn't know how to make a coherent action movie from the screenwriter of Air Force One who was only obliged to write the script just for a big sum of money.

Hence, End of Days is a worthless film with no redeeming value except for campiness -- Arnold's worst since Hercules in New York. 

 

 

 

 



Sentiment: negative