By Geno McGahee
Arnold Schwarzenegger is the man. I don’t think that anyone can argue that point. The majority of his movies are fantastic, with only a slight slip up here and there. How can you go wrong with PREDATOR, TERMINATOR, TERMINATOR 2, COMMANDO, and TRUE LIES? He is one of the best action stars the big screen has ever seen and he has had the balls to go out there and try different genres and has succeeded at them. Sure, he sexually harassed a few women along the way, but who cares? He makes good movies.
In the 1999 horror movie “END OF DAYS,” Schwarzenegger plays Jericho Cane, a cop that has lost his family after the mafia took them out and he has been suicidal ever since. His life is terrible and he has nothing to live for, but then he finds a cause: Christine (Robin Tunney).
Satan (Gabriel Byrne) wants to begin the end of days by taking Christine as his bride, and then there are those in the church that want to murder her. Arnold goes into protection mode. He even tells off the devil himself, claiming to be more bad. “You think you know bad huh? You’re a choir boy compared to me! A choir boy!!!” He meant it to. Arnold has kicked the living shit out of aliens and liquid metal robots. He doesn’t give two fucks about Satan.
There are several fights going on here. You have Arnold vs. Satan, Arnold vs. the Church, and Arnold vs. his lost faith. When he lost his family, he lost his faith, but this entire ordeal is bringing the reality of the devil and God into his world. In fact, the devil made a good point. If God was so great, why did he allow his wife and child to be murdered? Satan offers them back, but Arnold knows that he can’t trust the devil and he’s not giving up Christine.
Did you know that the devil can’t get enough sex? He fucks anything that moves. In one scene, he walks up to a hot chick, reaches into her dress and grabs her boob and makes out with her. I’m sure that Byrne was thinking: “they’re paying me for this? Can you say fucking awesome?”
There is a big showdown where it’s good versus evil and this is where Arnold excels. This is really a horror/action hybrid and Schwarzenegger does very well with it. He comes off as very genuine in this role. It wasn’t the over the top action star. This was a sincere character with an inner fight and inner strength, all evident through Arnold’s performance.
END OF DAYS was one of Arnold’s best performances. He proved that he can bring the horror and keep it real on the action side of it. I highly recommend this.
Rating: 7.5/10 – End of Days? I don’t think so…he’ll be back.