"End Of Days"

[Fearless Freep]

Not really a "B Movie" but it does have b elements so what the heck.  I picked it up last week

 End Of Days  was an end-of-the-millenium Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.  I don't know much about it but I'm under the impression it was supposed to be a 'different kind of' Arnold movie, and was not really well received.

Which is actually too bad because the movie itself, I thought, was pretty good.  It reminded me a bit of a bigger-budgeted "Prophecy" or other such "end-of-the-world-with-religious-overtones" movies.

I think, in fact, that it was a Schwarzenegger movie actually probably hurt it because it definately is not typical for him.  You could easily imagine another actor in the same role and it being better received.  However since you *can* imagine another actor in the role, this indicates that the fact that it *is* Arnold brings pretty much nothing extra to the role, and the movie.  To take the movie for it's own sake you really just have to take the character as he is and forget that it's played by the same actor as "The Terminator" and "Dutch"

I'll give him credit for trying out a role where the "Arnoldness" of the role is nowhere to be seen and he has to play it as an actor, not a caricature.  Any other actor probably wouldn't have had the weight of his own reputation constantly staring at trhe viewer, and the movie would've been given a better treatment.

Be that as it may, what I found most disappointing about the movie were the religious overtones.  Now, I'm a born-again Christian myself, but I can suspend disbelief long enough to watch "Prophecy" I-III or "The Ninth Gate" and sorta great artistic license for the creative ways in going outside the established storylines, so to speak.  However, if you are going to try to mix in some biblical material, at least try to keep it somewhat consistant or coherent.  That '666' as the number of the best is really '999' upside and means 1,000 years was a very weak stretch (just what do '6' and '9' look like in Aramaic or Greek, anyway? The coincidence of the number symmatery looks pretty silly when considering that the numbers are not as they were originally written).    Also the whole elaboration of '1,000' years for Satan to wait, drawn from "Revelation" in the bible, immediately looks pretty stupid when you actually read a few verses of the source material around which the 1,000 years are drawn.  It's one thing to extrapolate  possible interpretations in new and interesting directions.  Quite another to just totally take a few words and pretty much ignore the parapgraph they belong in and make up something about those few words, and then reference back to the source material you got the words from.

So, I'll give Arnold credit for trying a role where the fact that it was "Arnold" really dind't matter, and it was a decent enough 'religious-apocalypse' film.  But it could have been *a lot* better if more care was put into building up the back story from the religious sources for what was going

[Ash]

I disliked it so much I never finished watching it.

I stopped it with about 30 minutes remaining.

I still have never seen the end of it.

[Fearless Freep]

Um, why? Why did you dislike it?  What was it that made you stop watching it?

I rarely think of a movie as 'good' or 'bad' but more of 'I enjoyed the time I watched' or "I regret the time I watched it" or something in between.  As a result, I'm more interested in why someone disliked a movie than that someone disliked a movie

[Mofo Rising]

I saw it in the theater and didn't really like it.  None of the elements really clicked for me.  In fact the only part I really did like was the end of one of the trailers where Satan says "You know who I am, you're just afraid to admit it."  Which is a pretty creepy thing to say.

I have always thought the "suicide" scene with Arnold was unintentionally amusing.  Arnold doesn't really pull off that whole "pathos" thing.

Also on the plus side, Robin Tunney naked.

[The Burgomaster]

I hated this movie. The religious/action elements just didn't blend very well. I mean, Arnold shooting the Devil with guns? It just didn't work for me.

[dean]

i didn't think it was that bad.  at the time i saw the film, arnie hadn't really done too many notable action movies and was just coming off a string of comedies, so it was nice to see him back as a man of action.

and yes the devil getting shot with guns is kind of silly, but it's an arnie film and he's pulled off a lot more bulls**t [ahem] in other films, so its not that i'm looking to ask why they do it, i just accept it for what it is [just like any moment in a james bond film, where you'd go crazy asking why, so you learn to stop! :p ]

[FFrrp]

Yeah, some of the exchanges between Jericho and Satan seemed a little odd, or at least contrary to what you would think such an exchange would be like

[AndyC]

I agree that the role would have been better suited to another actor. The thing that stuck with me was the fact that Arnold simply did not look like a guy who had given up. The whole idea of him laying around, living like a slob, eating garbage, drinking heavily, etc. just doesn't work with a physical specimen like Arnold. He's healthy, strong, in great shape, and generally looks like he takes care of himself. Throwing leftover pizza in a blender and drinking it just isn't enough to convince me he's let himself go.

[NEC]

Oh and you can't forget that Udo Kier is in it!

[Paul Hotbranch]

I´ve seen it,and it rules!

Arnold Schwarzenegger is great as the main character and Gabriel Byrne is KICKASS as Satan!

[Neville]

Seen it and hate it. I agree that the premise wasn't that bad and that Byrne could have been great as Satan, but as other people said, Ahnuld wasn't a good choice for the leading role and the religious elements looked completely out of place.

What really ruined the movie for me was how dark the cinematography was. I mean, many times I was trying hard to see what they had framed and then the frame was gone and I had to deal with yet another dark image. Watching some of the last Peter Hyams stuff (such as this one or "The Relic"), you would believe the man has gone blind, just like Woody Allen's character in "A Hollywood ending".

[Paul Hotbranch]

Try watchint the actual movie instead of the frame.

[Deej]

Not Bad, although I agree with the shooting the devil thing. And why did the devil have to be Irish?!? Bastards!

And Arnie wasn't in Dutch, I know this because I'm the only person to have watched the movie more than once...and enjoyed it!

[Ash]

Actually Deej I think when they mentioned "Dutch" they weren't referring to the film.

They were referring to Arnie's character in "Predator".

Major Dutch.

Remember?

[Deej]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, then in that case...I never saw the movie Dutch, and if I did I certainly didn't like it....not a bit!