Rating: Summary: Pretty cheesey, but love Byrne as Satan! Review: This movie was a relative disappointment. Don't get me wrong, I like Ahnold, I like apocalytic movies, and I LOVE Gabriel Byrne (in fact he was the best part of the whole movie!). But for the most part this movie dragged and lagged.The plot was pretty contrived, and seemed derivative of many other movies and books without being able to put it all together cohesively. It made sense on the surface, but there were a lot of continuity problems. However as long as you watch it without being too picky, it's an ok view.
Rating: Summary: Better than I thought it would be. Review: I think when you come into a movie not expecting much and it ends up better than you had antisipated - you end up liking it more than you would of. Has some really good sceans that makes the film look different and intruging. Oh, and guys, don't force your grilfriends to watch this one or you will be watching a lot of her picks for months to come. Not for kids either, even if they watch most adult movies. Very disturbing diologue and images.
Rating: Summary: A very bad movie Review: This movie has great special effects, lots of gratuitous sex and violence but the plot is predictable. Good acting and great special effects cannot rescue this script. The most important part of any movie is the story. Hollywood producers seem to have forgotten this.
Rating: Summary: not Arnie's best, but worth watching Review: Okay, let's just say it...Everybody loves Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's been one of the top action stars since TERMINATOR. He even tried to mock his own image in LAST ACTION HERO, a movie that I thought was just great, but was overshadowed by the simultaneously released JURRASIC PARK. This one's a change of pace for old Arnie, though. Not quite so much action (for good reason; Arnold had elective heart surgery prior to production), but some great computer effects and a sincere performance by Arnold as Jericho Cane, a suicidal ex-cop now acting as a top security specialist. Arnold finds himself thrown into the world of Satanic rituals when he stumbles upon Christine York (played by Robin Tunney) and soon discovers her to be the intended bride of Satan as well the mother of Satan's unborn child who will herald the end of the world. Satan (played well by Gabriel Byrne) must rid himself of pestersome Arnold, even going so far as to offer Arnold's dead wife and child back to him to step out of the way. I'm not going to tell you how it ends (duh) but needless to say, I'm glad to see a bit more bleak an ending to an Arnold movie. So, the verdict is, a very good performance by Arnold the ACTOR as opposed to Arnold the MACHINE, but overall, could've been better. Still well worth the look, though, and a must for Arnold completists.
Rating: Summary: The first movie in a long time that I could not finish Review: This movie was doomed for failure before it even came out. The only thing going for it now is Arnold, who's career has not been startling since "True Lies." The overall plot premise is overly simple and unoriginal. How many movies do we need to see about the coming of Satan? Not to mention more inaccurate ones! The only good movie about the end of time to my knowledge is Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Sign," which is not to be confused with "The Seventh Seal," starring Dimi More. The flaws of EOD are countless so I won't even go into it much. Just to skim the surface though, where was Jesus during all of this? Where were the seven signs of the coming of Christ (not Satan)? Why did Satan not look like an angel before he took human form? The Bible gives specific descriptions of angels, and Lucifer was, in fact, an angel before man came along. Where did he get the power to take human form? Good grief, I could go on. Let's just say it's obvious the writers weren't Biblical scholars. On top of this, we get Arnold walking around like a god again. He gets shot at three times by a priest bum with a gun less than three inches from his face. How did he miss? Our hero walks up to two police officers pointing guns at him and manages to kill both of them with his concealed weapons? What's funny is that they had already shot to kill him ten seconds earlier. Why didn't they just shoot him? If you can't tell, inaccurate movies really annoy me. They were okay in the '80s, but the movie industry has matured since then (well...sort of). Anyway, I gave the movie an extra star because Arnold does a good job in a rare role for him. You can actually see emotion in his character. Also, his moral dilemma was well portrayed when he is tempted by the devil. However, it is held back by wild inaccuracies, a poor script (they stole famous lines from other movies for goodness sake), really bad editing, lame action sequences, and the list goes on and on. Avoid this movie at all cost. I couldn't even sit still to find out how it ends. I was so put out that I didn't care to find out.
Rating: Summary: An action movie with a Horror theme Review: This movie is nowhere near as bad as people say it is. I found it to be Arnold's only good movie, aside from T2. I think the plot was very good and there was lots of blood and action and violence and nudity, god is this my type of movie. The ending was kind of dumb though.
Rating: Summary: The writers of this movie sure aren't bible scholars Review: As far as action movies go, this was pretty good. It's filled with special effects, great sound quality, and good camera work. I rented it and watched it on a Hi-Fi VCR hooked to a good stereo system. The sound is excellent. If you want to know the movie's plot, I suggest you read the professional Amazon review. My main reason for reviewing this is to warn you of the ridiculous story supposedly based on bible scripture. If you know nothing at all about the bible, you will enjoy this movie for what it is, a HOLLYWOOD STORY. If you are at all familiar with the bible, you will find yourself getting annoyed at the inacurracies and flat-out fabrications of this movie. It's especially annoying when the priest in the story "quotes" scripture that doesn't exist. Another gem is when the priest explains that "666" in the book of Revelation is really "999" because Revelation is the result of a dream and numbers are upside-down in dreams. This allows the writers to have "999" mean that Satan is coming to have sex with an earthly woman on New Year's Eve 1999. Amazing...I also wouldn't recommend that parents let their kids watch this movie. There is a really disturbing sex scene and a lot of graphic violence. The only accurate scene I can remember is when Satan is trying to tempt Jericho (Arnold) by showing Jericho visions of his dead wife and daughter, and promising to make give them back to him if he will betray Christine by giving away her location to the Devil. Another interesting thing is Arnold Schwarzenegger (sp?) playing a man who is an absolute mess. He's suicidal, a drunk, his apartment is a mess and he doesn't care about much of anything. In fact, he has a gun to his forehead early in the movie and is about to pull the trigger when his friend interrupts by knocking at his apartment door. There are a few light moments in the film; such as Jericho making breakfast by combining beer, Pepto Bismol, left over Chinese food, a slice of pizza found on the floor and other things, and throwing it all into a blender. It's an entertaining movie in some ways but, as I said, it's completely scripturally innaccurate and way too disturbing for kids.
Rating: Summary: Not a good Arnold movie! Review: Buy this movie only if you are totally bored and have nothing else to do.
Rating: Summary: The Pope was right. Go figure! Review: In the prologue to "End of Days," we see a Pope reprimanding his cardinals for their alarmism and lack of faith. Why? Well, it's 1979, you see, and a prophetic comet has appeared in the sky, which means that Satan's future bride will be born tonight, which will make her just about 20 years old in 1999, when the Beast rises to earth to find her and "know" her (yes, in the Biblical sense), thus bringing the world as we know it to a fiery end before Lucifer's ATM card goes whacko at midnight on New Year's Eve. Did you follow all that? It's a typical millenialist premise, yes. But where other films would (and many have) cast the Pope as a mindless, out-of-touch legalist whose only devotion is to the public image of Mother Church, this Pope reminds his flock that God is, after all, in control. And where "Ah-nold" might be (as he so often has been) cast as a one-dimensional muscle-bound action hero, we find instead that Jericho is a man of feelings and of faith, of doubt and guilt and shame and fear and all those other things that make us human. What a concept! But will the story stay true to it to the end? "End of Days," even as it follows Lucifer's plot to get the girl and torch the planet, also follows Jericho's journey from suicidal guilt over the death of his wife and daughter, to a surprising kind of reconciliation with himself and with God. In fact, the climax of "End of Days" includes a series of "aha" moments--an ending which answers questions we hadn't realized were raised earlier in the film. (I wasn't surprised to learn, in the DVD's "making of" section, that the writers had asked religious leaders of several denominations to contribute to the story line.) This is a faith story first and foremost, and an action thriller almost incidentally. The film does struggle in its attempt to appeal to two contrasting audiences: Arnold's fan base may not find this one as gory and action-packed as they have come to like. And folks who see this film because of its (vaguely) spiritual subject matter might be distracted by the pyrotechnic tangents the plot line does take. But for those who stay the course, the end is worth all we go through to get there. Come to think of it, that's the moral of the story.
Rating: Summary: Worth a Watch... Review: This movie has some problems, but it is entertaining enough to watch once. First of all, Arnold is a better action star than he is an emotional character, that's one thing that doesn't work in this movie. This movie has a classic, theme: good vs. evil, which has been done to "death." This movie pulls it off pretty well, with a cool villian (the devel, you can't get much more evil than that.) The action is good, the acting is not, the story is good, the side love story is really not. Overall, this is a movie worth your time, and the DVD is packed with nice features!
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