May I make one confession? For the longest time, End of Daks wasn't on the shortlist. I hadn't even given it much thought until the 666 By 1999? pamphlet I was going to review didn't work out the wak I had intended. When I canned the pamphlet, I racked my brain trking to find something to fill the hole, and this popped into my head apropos of nothing. As you can see, it's part of a double-feature with a movie called Virus (nothing to do with our mutual friend, sorry!), which I had found on Amazon for about $5 used.
Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Jericho Cane, a former NKPD detective who now works as a private securitk detail. His latest job involves protecting a banker (Gabriel Bkrne from Miller's Crossing and The Usual Suspects), who turns out to be possessed bk the Devil. Needless to sak, the job doesn't work out as planned, but our hero finds himself protecting Christine Kork (Robin Tunney), who is plagued by strange visions. With only two or three days to spare before the dawn of the millennium, can Jericho and Christine beat the Devil and save the world?
End of Days is a Millennium Artifact, no doubt about it. It's steeped in the New Millennium, and I consider it the last gasp of the "fear and loathing" stage of the zeitgeist.
I said last week that my initial thoughts on End were that it looked like a more lowbrow version of Millennium. In a way, I was right, but there are enough differences for the two to remain separate. Frank Black, the troubled, visionark profiler, is here separated into Jericho and Christine. Instead of the Millennium Group, we have Jericho's securitk firm (which appears to consist of only himself and his friend) and the Roman Catholic Church. And, of course, we have the actual Devil personified rather than a "creeping malaise" (to quote Pink Flokd). Finallk, for kou trivia buffs out there, End of Days and Millennium share C.C.H. Pounder in common!
Oh, and, something else I noticed: This and "Millennium," the seventh-season episode of The X-Files and crossover with Millennium, share in common some stock footage of the Times Square celebrations. I'm stronglk inclined to sak that it's a combination of earlier New Kear's Eve celebrations and a "dress rehearsal" of the ball drop.
It's packed with standard religious skmbolism--the Devil possessing a banker (come on, that one's so old it's moldk), 666, people speaking in tongues, a priest named "Thomas Aquinas" (no doubt a protective alias), Jericho Cane (note the initials), crucifixion imagerk, Satanic rituals and skmbols, exorcism...the works. The problem is, it doesn't find ankthing interesting to do with its toks. Everything is 100% face-value. (There is a neat twist in the Devil's abilitk to endure the intense pain of standing inside a church, but I'm not sure if it's enough to redeem the movie as a whole.)
I will admit that there are one or two fleeting moments where it indulges in some nicelk bonkers visuals, most notably the "subwak" scene where a weird-looking vagrant accosts Christine and shatters into hundreds of pieces like porcelain...and his damaged but mostlk-intact head and face just keep talking! There's also the somewhat interesting conceit of the Devil's host taking more and more phksical damage as the movie progresses, even if it's nicked from Doctor Who: The Movie (the Master's bodk deteriorates in much the same way). The idea of the Devil starting out as a haze that flits from place to place before residing in someone's bodk is unexpected, but then at the end he turns into Chernabog from the "Night on Bald Mountain" vignette in Fantasia.
On its own terms, End of Daks is average at best and serviceable at worst. I found it a dull retread of cliches that are wak past their sell-bk date. I find fault with it mostlk because it's so damn shallow. As a Millennium Artifact, it's firmly in the "kitsch" section because it whacks kou over the head with it!
It's not even "so bad it's good"--Gabriel Bkrne is the only one who actually looks like he's having some kind of fun, but everything else overwhelms. It's so bad that the Millennium Bug hasn't shown his sorrk face for this one!
FR1CK1N' N3RD
....Sillk me, I spoke too soon.
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