and i thought " stigmata " would be the worst religiously-oriented thriller released this year . 
turns out i was wrong , because while " stigmata " was merely boring and self-important , " end of days " is completely inept on all fronts . 
it's a silly , incomprehensible , endlessly stupid mess . 
for a guy like me who grew up watching arnold schwarzenegger at his best , it's extremely disconcerting to see where the big man has ended up . 
for the first time in recent memory , an arnold action movie ( and " batman & robin " doesn't count ) is no fun at all . 
 " end of days " is a major stinker . 
the movie opens in vatican city , 1979 . 
some catholic priests have observed an ancient prophecy , which says that a girl will be born on that night that satan will have targeted for impregnation . 
if he impregnates her between 11 and midnight on december 31 , 1999 , the world will be destroyed . 
the pope orders protection of this girl , though some priests believe she ought to be killed . 
in new york , that very night , a girl is born to fulfill the prophecy . 
twenty years later , we meet jericho cane ( schwarzenegger ) , a suicidal ex-cop with a drinking problem . 
now working as a security guard for hire , he is protecting a local businessman ( gabriel byrne ) , who is actually possessed by the devil . 
an assassination attempt on the businessman by a crazed former priest leads him to the girl satan is after , christine york ( robin tunney ) . 
recognizing elements of his own murdered daughter in christine ( including ownership of the same music box , apparently ) , jericho swears to protect her against the devil and the faction of priests looking to kill her . 
there are so many problems with this film it's hard to know where to begin , but how about starting with the concept ? 
casting arnold in a role like this was a mistake to begin with . 
schwarzenegger is a persona , not an actor , so putting him in a role that contradicts his usual strong personality is a bad idea . 
arnold has neither the dramatic range nor the speaking ability to pull off a character tormented by conflicting emotions . 
in other words , trying to give him dimension was a mistake . 
harrison ford , mel gibson , or even bruce willis could have played this role ( they've all played noble and flawed heroes ) , but not schwarzenegger . 
there are several scenes that attempt to establish jericho's character ; one has him contemplating suicide , another crying over the loss of his wife and daughter , and even one in which the devil tries to tempt him into revealing christine's location by offering him his old life back . 
none of these scenes really work , because arnie isn't up to the task . 
the filmmakers would have been better off making jericho a strong , confident character ( like the terminator , for example ) , the likes of which schwarzenegger has excelled in before . 
this one isn't at all believable the way arnold plays him . 
the supporting cast tries their hardest , and only gabriel byrne makes any impact at all . 
as the prince of darkness , he's suave and confident . 
he acts like one would expect the devil to act . 
the problem is that the script has him doing things that make no sense ( more on that later ) and that undermines him as a powerful villain . 
byrne out-performs arnold in every scene they have together ( including the aforementioned temptation bit ) , but this is problematic when it causes the audience to start doing the unthinkable : root for the devil . 
byrne's speech about the bible being " overrated " actually starts to make sense , mainly because arnold's attempts at refuting it ( mostly of the " 'tis not ! " 
variety ) are feeble at best . 
the only problem is , arnold has to win , so in the end , nobody really cares . 
kevin pollack plays jericho's security guard sidekick and tries to liven things up with some comic asides , but like most bad action movie sidekicks , he disappears after about an hour . 
robin tunney isn't given much to do except look scared . 
in fact , all of the supporting players are good actors , but none , save for byrne , is given anything interesting to do . 
performances aside , it would be really hard to enjoy this film no matter who starred in it . 
this being an action blockbuster , it's no surprise that the worst thing about it is the script , which starts off totally confusing , and when some of it is explained ( and not much of it is ) , it's utterly ridiculous . 
why is the devil coming on new year's eve , 1999 ? 
because it's exactly 1000 years after the year of the devil , which isn't 666 , it turns out . 
some nutty priest accidentally read it upside down , so the real year is 999 , so just add a 1 to the beginning , and you've got 1999 ! 
if you don't buy this explanation , you're not alone . 
it's convoluted and silly at the same time . 
the method by which jericho locates christine york is equally ludicrous ( she's christine , see , and she lives in new york , see . 
 . 
 . ) , and if that weren't bad enough , there's plenty of bothersome stuff in this film that isn't explained at all . 
why can satan kill everyone he passes on the street , but when it comes to snuffing out one drunk ex-cop , he's powerless ? 
is he impervious to only one kind of bullet ? 
how come he can't control jericho or christine ? 
and how did those gregorian monks deal with time zones in their prophecies ? 
a clumsy attempt at a joke is made about this , but it's never actually explained . 
usually , this sort of thing wouldn't matter in a schwarzenegger flick ( i mean , don't get me started on the time paradoxes offered up by the terminator movies ) , but this time the plot inconsistencies stand out even more than usual because the action is rarely exciting . 
there are several predictable horror film clich ? s present in " end of days , " complete with the old " black cat hiding in a cabinet " bit , not that we ever find out what the cat was doing in there . 
it gets so formulaic that it's possible for those uninterested in being scared to close their eyes at the precise moment a " boo " will come . 
their predictions will rarely be wrong . 
the more grandiose action sequences are utterly charmless , partially because we don't care about these characters ( due to the script's pathetic attempts at characterization and setup ) , and also because they , too , don't make any sense . 
there's a scene where schwarzenegger gets thrown around a room by a little old lady . 
it's good for a few chuckles , but not much else . 
supposedly we're to believe she now has super strength by virtue of being controlled by satan , but the script never sets that up , so the scene is merely silly . 
none of this is terribly exciting , because all the action sequences are so badly framed that it's often hard to tell why it's happening in the first place , not to mention that they're edited in full-on incomprehensible mtv quick-cut style . 
most of them had me scratching my head , rather than saying , " wow , cool ! " 
 " end of days " is not only silly and confusing , but it's also distinctly unpleasant to watch . 
the devil apparently doesn't operate in the more subtle , i'll-convince-people-to-kill-each-other fashion outlined in the bible , but instead enjoys killing people gruesomely in broad daylight . 
this doesn't only make him an awfully predictable sort , but it also means that not a single scene in " end of days " goes by without unnecessarily graphic violence , or the odd kinky sexual encounter ( yet another bit that had me scratching my head ) . 
if violence is supposed to be shocking , it's not a good idea to throw so much of it into a movie that the audience goes numb . 
scenes aren't connected through any reasonable means , so a lot of the time , stuff gets blown up , or people get killed , and i had no idea why . 
reasons ? 
to hell with reasons ! 
let's just blow stuff up ! 
isn't it cool ? 
nope , not by a long shot . 
this film is thoroughly unwatchable . 
it's dull , interminable , and unrelenting in its stupidity . 
perhaps arnold needs to make some movies with james cameron to revive his career , because it's not happening with hack peter hyams here . 
 " end of days " might have had camp value , if only it didn't top itself off with an overly pious ending that nobody's going to buy . 
if the movie is going to be serious , the filmmakers should have come up with a decent script . 
if it's going to be campy , arnold shouldn't be taking himself so damn seriously ( i didn't actually see him put up on a cross , did i ? ) , and his character shouldn't be such a sad sack . 
as it stands , " end of days " is just a bad movie , and an awfully gloomy one at that .