Clown

Posted on July 7, 2016 by Tom

Release: Friday, June 17, 2016 (limited)

[Theater]

Written by: Jon Watts; Christopher D. Ford

Directed by: Jon Watts

Jon Watts’ body horror film, a production slotted directly between his much-acclaimed debut thriller Cop Car and his shot at making Spider-Man cool again (again) is simple and direct. Unfortunately Clown is so stripped down it pretty much fails to register at all, wasting a perfectly good transformation and concept in the process.

Icky but emotionally inert story features a loving father, Kent (Andy Powers), rescuing his son’s birthday party by putting on a clown costume he finds in storage when the paid entertainment fails to show. Kent begins exhibiting strange behavior after several failed attempts at removing the suit hours after the party reveal that it might not be a suit at all. As the story progresses we watch as Kent becomes subjected to a horrific physical transformation that his wife Meg (Laura Allen) is helpless to do anything about. Son Jack (Christian Distefano) is left wondering if this is all his fault. Eh, . . . it . . . kind of is . . . but hey, the poor kid had no idea daddy had just found demon skin in the garage.

While gritty effects work make Kent’s ordeal a little difficult to watch at the best of times, the overall concept fails to scare or really entertain. More problematic than anything else is that the effectiveness of said horror is predicated upon how strongly the actors deliver the goods. The concept is so simple that it all but demands heavy doses of humanity to get us to a place where we feel saddened by the radical changes. Instead we get cardboard cut-outs of characters who give estimates with their emotional responses. It doesn’t help that Allen’s role as a freaked out housewife boils down to ‘well, do I want my husband back or do I euthanize him?’

This particular clown comes complete with its own shaky, unconvincing mythology, the bulk of which is delivered by Peter Stormare‘s tacked-on supporting role as Herbert Karlsson, brother to Dr. Martin Karlsson, a cancer treatment specialist who designed the suit to entertain his young patients. Where the mythology falls apart is in trying to piece together how a Patch Adams get-up suddenly becomes the skin and hair of a child-eating demon. (There’s some nonsense about a malevolent spirit called the ‘Cloyne,’ or something.) This is the kind of logical gap that tends to cripple horror films, and that certainly is true of Clown as the story limps toward a thoroughly predictable and uninspired climax. A climax that merely proves whether that fucking suit will come off or not.

Clown never reaches the heights of what its admittedly twisted visuals hint toward. It never really comes close. Even when the true horror is revealed everything feels low-budget and in the worst way possible. Tonally Clown is unsure of itself, with comedic moments arising quite unintentionally — I highly doubt the whole episode with ripping off the red shiny nose was designed for yucks, unlike an earlier scene in which we see Kent, who is a realtor, stumbling onto another work site dressed still as a clown. No, at the moment of nose- and hair-rippage we’ve left the comedy well behind. Again, in theory.

I look at Jon Watts’ direction in the same way I do the simplicity of Tom Petty songs. That’s not necessarily good for Watts. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have operated for years with one simple motto that has helped their success endure: “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus.” Watts takes this philosophy to heart, sacrificing relationship-building for a quick, easy payoff. It doesn’t work.

Recommendation: Body horror film fails to creep audiences out in any significant way. Despite the premise revolving around one of the creepiest things imaginable — clowns — the mythology behind this one clown suit is laughably poor and uninteresting. Not a film to flock to for performances. Nor memorable storylines. It has some good, bloody effects but that’s about all I can recommend about Jon Watts’ Clown.

Rated: R

Running Time: 100 mins.

Quoted: “Jack, you have to kill your daddy.”

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Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com

Hellions

Posted on April 13, 2016 by Tom

Release: Friday, September 18, 2015 (limited)

[Netflix]

Written by: Pascal Trottier

Directed by: Bruce McDonald

So if your ‘Netflix-and-chill’ night ever came down to a choice between sitting in total awkward silence and putting on a movie called Hellions, you’d be better off trying your luck with complete silence. Go ahead, make it as uncomfortable as possible by broaching the subject of how awkward it is to sit in silence like this. Your date may think you’re weird but, hey, you’ve just saved the evening from total ruination.

You do this because you appreciate them enough to not make them suffer through Hellions, a massively overproduced home invasion thriller that boils down to a teen defending herself against some psychotic trick-or-treaters who come a-knockin,’ but not for candy. Dora (Chloe Rose) is your typically moody 17-year-old stuck at home alone Halloween night. She has plans to have a quiet night at home with her boyfriend but her mom isn’t so cool with that, man.

Mom’s going to be taking Dora’s younger brother out trick-or-treating so she won’t be able to keep an eye on her. That doesn’t stop her from contradictorily encouraging her daughter to go out and “have fun tonight.” (Oh, she will! But she ain’t going out.) Within a few minutes of being by herself Dora’s already texting her boy-toy, wondering whether they’re still going to that party or not. Then, a knock at the door. Rather than the handsome mug of the teen we’re expecting it to be, we’re greeted by a pretty evil-looking little tyke who seems to forget it’s customary to say “trick-or-treat” at the door on All Hallow’s Eve. After some substantial tension Dora sends the kid away, a little taken aback by both the mask and his odd behavior.

A couple more near-wordless scenes succeed in further quickening your pulse as Dora starts noticing kids standing in groups on all sides of the house, as if in preparation for an organized attack. Still no word from her boyfriend and it’s getting dark outside. Oh, how ignorance is bliss, for what ensues in the next half of the film (all of maybe 40 minutes) is nothing short of bizarre — not the kind of bizarre that gives horror a good name but the kind that becomes really difficult to watch, physically difficult.

What begins as a relatively compelling assault on the house by a group of kids with mischief in mind devolves into a patently absurd mix of poorly-conceived supernatural and demonic elements that makes Hellions next to impossible to categorize as either. Is this some kind of supernatural event this Blood Moon, or are the kids a bunch of evil E.T.’s? Then the mind starts to really wander: ‘What is a ‘hellion?’ Is that like a balloon? No, now I’m thinking about helium.’ Turns out, it’s a term of endearment for a misbehaving child. Or in this case, child actors instructed to wear a variety of freaky masks and superimposed (badly) against a pixelated, apocalyptic background.

I guess this is the part where I probably should say Dora has recently discovered she’s four weeks pregnant (gasp, she’s only seventeen!). Why’s this important? As it so happens, this is what the children have come for. They’re looking for a blood sacrifice, as they presumably do every year, and Dora’s the lucky victim. I can hear you saying now: ‘but the baby’s only four weeks old!’ Yes, that’s true. But this is pregnancy on steroids, you see, as the child fully develops within the span of the movie, subjecting the mother (or is it more politically correct to call her the host?) to all kinds of misery while her house is under siege. And the evil that’s outside will not go away until they get what they’ve come for.

On the surface, it’s not a bad premise. I can think of few things more unsettling than complicated pregnancy, and when you start talking about the potential of it being inhuman, well that’s just. . . . Also noted: the involvement of mostly child actors as the collective evil force is an inspired twist. Their speaking parts aren’t demanding, all they really do is repeat her name in a collective eerie chant that vaguely recalls Rosemary’s Baby, but their presence is certainly felt and one of the strengths of the film. But as time winds on, even they become lost in another CGI mess that’s as ugly as it is uninteresting.

You know how some movies become great fun when the poor quality and execution eventually give way to unintentional comedy, the kind of B-movie that you play drinking games during? Yeah, well this isn’t one of those. This is just horror botched. The problem is more fundamental than that even: it’s botched storytelling. It’s botched filmmaking.

Though not for a lack of creativity. If there’s anything Hellions proves it’s that the filmmakers — or I should say, whoever oversaw the final cut — were pretty creative in trying to cover up the glaring fact that the story is rather anorexic. All kinds of visual wizardry is put to ‘good’ use, not least of which being some seriously ill-advised music video-esque CGI that turns the picture shades of red and blue; several sequences are sliced, diced and recycled in a concerted effort to confuse and confound; a cacophony of loud noises and the aforementioned chants lay the psychological fuckery on thick, in case everything else hasn’t.

Recommendation: Hellions is the epitome of style over substance and a great example of how badly that flaw can detract from a director’s vision. It’s okay if you rely on some style to complement a certain mood or atmosphere that can’t be achieved any other way, but when the style becomes the only thing viewers notice, you’ve gone a bit too far. Hellions goes several feet too far. Unfortunately there’s really not much here to recommend to genre fans or those looking for something random on Netflix. I’d go with something else.

Rated: NR

Running Time: 80 mins.

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Photo credits: http://www.imdb.com; http://www.horrordrome.com

Jupiter Ascending

Posted on February 8, 2015 by Tom

Release: Friday, February 6, 2015

[Theater]

Written by: The Wachowskis

Directed by: The Wachowskis

As Jupiter ascended, my patience and enthusiasm did precisely the opposite, and at warp speed, too.

After production delays stalled the Wachowski siblings’ follow-up to their impressive Cloud Atlas, I still held out hope that even with extensive CGI surgery the general experience would remain unaffected. I guess I was right. The story we’re presented — a girl, born under a starry night sky, doesn’t believe she’s worth much but as it turns out she is actually on a collision course with an unearthly huge responsibility: saving her/our planet from being harvested by a campy celestial tyrant — remains as a decent second-draft that needed more updates than the visual component of the film did. All of this is to suggest I overlooked the fact that maybe, just maybe, the Wachowskis had been sitting on their weakest story to date.

Sure, you can go ahead and snicker at a polished Channing Tatum whose Caine Wise humbles his Magic Mike on the virtue of insane hair-do’s alone. His goofy appearance makes the film ripe for parody, as do the talking reptilian villains, Eddie Redmayne’s awful performance and Mila Kunis’ lack of credibility as a planetary savior. Part of what makes a Wachowski creation entertaining as well as endearing is this tendency for their situations and characters to stay on just the right side of bizarre. Odd customs and cultures, strange dialects, occasionally clunky dialogue and over-the-top action sequences trickle their way into each one of their productions. It’s as much fun to go along with the ride as it is to nitpick over their ongoing infatuation with Asians and creative nomenclature. Jupiter Ascending, however, oversteps a line.

Jupiter Jones loses her parents much too soon, and so she’s raised in a strange and somewhat oppressive Russian household that has her waking up at quarter to five each morning to scrub toilets and bemoaning how much she “hates her life.” I think I would too with a name that may or may not imply I am a gigantic blob of gas. It’s a good thing she’ll soon be targeted by a powerful intergalactic family that has just lost its matriarch and needs a new heir. The surviving Abrasax siblings — Balem (Redmayne), Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) and Titus (Douglas Booth) — are squabbling over who should seize control of their estate, a sector of the universe that includes Earth. Tatum’s genetically-modified human/wolf appears in Chicago to rescue Jupiter from a random attack by some of Balem’s minions (the Keepers) once the freckled maniac learns of her existence and her true identity. The girl of course has no idea what is going on.

Funny enough, neither do we.

Her naivety swells to the point where it becomes the driving force behind the narrative. This is a little misleading because at the heart of this space opera is the need for Jupiter to find her true calling in life, and to her that means finding the one person she really loves. That’s something that overrides her desire to own the Earth. If you’re not distracted by the incredibly cool renderings of space and its myriad civilizations — toss in an intergalactic police force referred to as the Aegis for further confusion — then you might have the unfortunate luck of coming to the realization that this is all the Wachowskis have to offer here. Jupiter Ascending is a standard love story mired in overly complex mythos, poor acting and silly storytelling.

Damn it if the ideology of these Abrasax weirdos doesn’t tease something greater though. There’s this almost poetic fascination with the largest celestial body in our solar system and how a superior form of intelligence may someday be the downfall of our civilization. Jupiter, the planet, is really a thing of beauty and the film can’t emphasize this enough. The visuals are jaw-dropping, even if they’re mostly dedicated to action sequences that go on a few minutes too long. But even on Earth, as Jupiter is shrouded in a cloud of bees that refuse to sting Her Majesty, the cinematography is beautifully refined.

I’d be okay with the story taking a backseat to impressive scenery had the Wachowskis not already established themselves as filmmakers who pride themselves on being able to present the complete package: stunning visuals accompanying intelligent, if not revolutionary storytelling. Everyone in awe of Jupiter and her ascent can only feel completely betrayed by this declension.

Recommendation: I’m not really sure that I do. I think I feel more comfortable recommending you save a few bucks and going to check out something else.

Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 125 mins.

Quoted: “I will harvest that planet tomorrow before I let her take it from me. . .”

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Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com

Mortdecai

Posted on January 31, 2015 by Tom

Release: Friday, January 23, 2015

[Theater]

Written by: Eric Aronson

Directed by: David Koepp

Charlie Mortdecai has a sensitive gag reflex. He endearingly calls it a ‘sympathetic gag.’ After seeing Johnny Depp embrace an entirely new level of bizarre here, I’m pretty sure I’ve developed something similar, except mine’s not out of sympathy. I’m genuinely disgusted by how bad this movie is.

If like me at my apparently most vulnerable you were unfortunate enough to stumble into a theater only to have Johnny Depp harass your sense of humor and goodwill for slightly more than an hour and a half, you might agree that there is a huge difference between the gags featured in decent comedies and the ones provided here. Two types of gags activating two completely different parts of your body.

The apple of Charlie’s eye, his so-called great love Johanna (Gwyneth Paltrow), gags in the film because she is taken aback by her man’s interest in sprouting hair on his upper lip. A fashion faux pas at the very least, the mustache might be the funniest bit of the entire film. Mortdecai is an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. If anyone’s in need of an explanation as to why I would willingly put myself through something that sounds this bad, I need only to refer you to some of the media I have included with this review. I hardly gag in response to a mustachioed Olivia Munn. No siree. Nope.

A plot synopsis is as follows: Depp aims to get to the bottom of the theft of a particular Goya painting, or something or other. As a man who dabbles in more than just facial hair and beautiful women, his ~~character~~ caricature is both financially and personally invested in the stolen art. His recent coming into debt compels him to find it, as does a recent visit from Inspector Alistair Martland (Ewan McGregor, the poor chap), a man who has had a thing for Johanna ever since he first laid eyes on her. (When she’s saddled with a douchebag of Mortdecai’s stature, who can blame him?) Together, the art snobs and Constable Can’t Get Any travel the world over to locate the missing Goya, thought to bear a code somewhere on it potentially leading to a stash of untold amounts of Nazi gold.

The prime suspect is — well, it doesn’t matter who that is. Essentially everyone’s a suspect, even Mortdecai but after he’s kidnapped by Russian mobsters and his very ability to reproduce is threatened in no small way — how about some electrocuted bollocks to go along with this heaping helping of what the fuck? — it’s clear that Mortdecai, in spite of himself, hasn’t actually taken the precious artwork for himself. Jock will back him up on that, too. Jock (Paul Bettany), referred to as Mortdecai’s man-servant no less than 70 million times because repeating already lame jokes always seems to do the trick with audiences, is a good bloke despite his zipper problems. That he’s always got Charlie’s back takes precedence over his incredible womanizing abilities. Believe it or not, he’s the most likable character of the whole lot. I’m still scratching my head though as to why he signed on for this one.

People are going to be gunning for Depp after this one. That much is certain. But his colorful performance actually triggered some chuckles deep within. Maybe I feel dirty for admitting that. But he’s not the overriding issue with David Koepp’s impossibly dumb movie. The real killing blow is Mortdecai‘s inability to realize it’s potential. Or to even care about it! It can’t take itself seriously for even one second. Majority of the gags do not land, save for the physical ones that land on the floor; the characters are off-the-map ridiculous (Olivia Munn as a nymphomaniac — makes sense, if you’re going to cast someone that beautiful she may as well be a sex addict too; Jeff Goldblum is in the frame for all of two minutes, but suddenly collapses after being poisoned — I’m not sure if that was in the script or just his subtle way of saying “get me out of this farce”); the humor is too low-brow and monotonous even if occasionally it strikes a nerve. Nothing scatological here, but nothing memorable either.

An adaptation of Kyril Bonfiglioli’s comedy anthology, Don’t Point That Thing At Me, this movie is elegant in its failings. It’s difficult to imagine this squeezes out any of the zest of that book series. Unfortunately this is a production so feeble in its construction and so ill-advised in its overwhelming inanity it’s highly unlikely I’ll get around to checking out the source material. For higher-quality entertainment, you’d be better off getting your balls zapped by some angry Russians.

Recommendation: This was pretty bad. I . . . I don’t know if I recommend Mortdecai on any level to anyone outside of those with a penchant for s. (I think that’s what led me into this theater, along with the three other poor saps that were there with me. Here I was, thinking my taste in movies was pretty decent . . . )

Rated: R

Running Time: 107 mins.

Quoted: “I had no idea I was so deep in Her Majesty’s hole!”

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Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com

Blackhat

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Tom

Release: Friday, January 16, 2015

[Theater]

Written by: Morgan Davis Foehl

Directed by: Michael Mann

Even with an hilariously miscast Chris Hemsworth, Blackhat is utterly forgettable.

Something that’s less forgettable is its horrendous opening weekend performance. Set against a budget of $70 million, Michael Mann’s cybercrime would-be-thriller brought in a grand total of $1.7 million in its debut, necessarily deeming Blackhat one of the biggest box office bombs in cinematic history given its wide release status.

At best, the pairing of a Hollywood hunk with a predominantly international cast is amusing if for the opportunity to count all the ways in which the film panders to a global audience. If that wasn’t enough, the lack of chemistry between the towering Brit and his computer hacking buddies — Leehom Wang’s Chen Dawai, and Wei Tang’s Chen Lien, who are brother and sister in the film — are the glitches that bring this story to its knees.

Mr. Mann captures some compelling action sequences but the stunt work goes to waste when we’re having trouble even believing the actors in roles that have them staring at computer screens for most of the time. Hemsworth plays Nick Hathaway, a computer hacker serving prison time because he’s a real bastard behind keyboard and mouse. His direct involvement isn’t made clear right away, but two major events occur at the film’s open that we’re meant to pay attention to (but can’t because they’re somewhat trivialized by a confusing series of shots detailing the inner workings of computers): a nuclear reactor in Hong Kong experiences a catastrophic coolant malfunction, while the Mercantile Trade Exchange based in Chicago gets hacked.

Whoever’s clever enough to hack these systems is going to have to answer for the damage, or so say some stern-looking Chinese government officials. They enlist the help of the FBI, in the form of Agent Carol (Viola Davis in an ironic performance; her voice is so monotonous she sounds more of a computer hacker than anyone else) in bringing those responsible to justice. At first, everyone believes these attacks to be the work of Thor. They may as well be. Hemsworth-as-hacker is about as out of place as his demigod was on Earth.

Hathaway’s asked to help solve the crimes together with Dawai and the FBI in tow, but his condition is that his prison sentence be commuted and that he gets to have the cute girl in the end. Though he does not make the second request, you know this is happening regardless. And how. Talk about some majorly underdeveloped character arcs. The team are soon bouncing all over the globe in an effort to track down the cyber terrorists, who are now aiming to take out more nuclear reactors in order to flood an expansive tin mine in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The terrorists’ goals aren’t exactly revelatory but they work well enough to assume a threat. But in a movie like Blackhat, where more time is spent deciphering code and, apparently, studying the inner workings of hard drives, the real world doesn’t take center stage. Or when the threat finally becomes truly palpable, any audience member not in possession of a degree in computer science has long since tuned out. An error message reads on the front of their foreheads: this does not compute. This does not compel.

The director should be credited for his commitment to getting things right. The focus on the technical aspects, even if excruciatingly boring at times, is impressive. Unfortunately computer screens and staring at endless code sequences — unless we’re in the Matrix — do not on their own make for an interesting product. Then, when we get to the action sequences they’re too short-lived to make much of an impression. I suppose I could keep going here, but the review might get a little mean-spirited. I’m no blackhat critic, out for malicious intent. Out for revenge upon the world just because.

I just happen to think this movie vastly underserves both its audience — on either side of the Atlantic — and its particularly timely themes.

This. A whole lot of this. Exciting, right?

Recommendation: Blackhat has grand aspirations but it squanders them in a navel-gazing screenplay that is more interested in getting underneath the keyboard instead of into the minds of some high-profile cyber-terrorists. Fans of Chris Hemsworth will also be wise to stay clear of this one, this isn’t his best effort. I’m not even sure if I can recommend this one to the geekiest of computer geeks.

Rated: R

Running Time: 133 mins.

Quoted: “You are no longer in control. . .”

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Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com

TBT: End of Days (1999)

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Tom

HAPPY NEW YEAR PEEPS! My friends, get used to using the time stamp ‘2015.’ Because it is a brand new year, I think it’s definitely time for TBT to stage a comeback. I’m finally feeling refreshed on this thread, and I have quite a ridiculous number to blabber on about today. What’s tall, strong and rhymes with Fwarzenegger? That’s right, the star of

Today’s food for thought: End of Days.

Haunting viewers half-assedly since: November 24, 1999

[DVD]

Schwarzenegger. Satan. Squaring off at the turn of the millennium.

Sounds great, right? And I mean, really, how much blame can one put on me for thinking the idea might lead to a pretty sweet movie way back when? (When was that ‘when?’ Let’s just go with whenever.) Well last night I discovered, amidst a haze of ~~celebratory~~ hellfire-and-brimstone smoke, that I had approximately 120 minutes’ worth of blame to assign myself for thinking that this lame supernatural thriller from Peter Hyams could cut the mustard.

Well that mustard must have been thick, or the un-cuttable kind, because that so didn’t happen. For a movie set at the height of anti-tech-based fear-mongering before the year 2000, this bloated production feels more obligatory than optional. Insipid instead of inspired. End of Days, despite a suitably ominous opening title sequence, winds up as a rather flaccid, albeit topical, film that yields very little in the way of scares and even less in terms of convincing performances. We’re surely not going to look to the big guy (for clarification, I mean Arnie) for the acting chops — he’s not exactly going to seduce the devil with a rousing performance independent of those spectacular pectorals. But if anyone else involved could have at least pretended that they looked at a script before signing on, that wouldn’t have been the worst sin committed that year.

Arnie can get away with looking more morose than he ever has because we wouldn’t want it any other way. Not when the Spawn of Satan is threatening to share potential screen time with him. The stakes have got to be high. So Arnie does. Tattered and torn by a past that still haunts him, Jericho Cane currently bides his time as an operative of a high-tech security team after throwing in the towel with the NYPD. The similarly jaded Bobby Chicago (I’m not making these names up), played by Kevin Pollak, functions more as a shadow and less of an independent character. He is plotted along a thoroughly predictable and entirely unoriginal character arc that only serves to contribute to a deep pool of genre cliches that gains great depth towards the end. Standing side-by-side with Jericho in a vast majority of scenes, he offers moral support for a man clearly in psychological peril. Jericho is a man who doesn’t believe in God anymore, but he better get his shit together quickly if he’s to save the world — more importantly, the party in Times Square — from what the title of this movie suggests.

On the last day of the first 1,000 years, it is said that the “ultimate personification of evil” shall rise and roam the Earth, searching for a lover to help create his offspring with. The consummation would in effect bring about the apocalypse. For all of this to work, the demon spirit will inhabit a human body to disguise itself until such an opportunity finally presents itself. Enter Gabriel Byrne, who has a hell of a time exercising his satanic side (though Al Pacino’s John Milton would like to have a sit-down with him as to how to properly effect unease in another without having to go full-on nutso). At least Byrne is one of a few involved who seems to be able to maintain the illusion he’s not dismayed by such an amateurish script. In End of Days, even Satan is predictable and boring.

I’m going to suggest something now that might read a little weird, but . . . shouldn’t Satan be precisely the opposite? Byrne tries mightily, but it’s to little avail. Every major moment his angry little man has recalls a much more inspired one Pacino had when interacting with Keanu Reeve’s heavily conflicted Kevin Lomax. It is a little unfair to make these comparisons but when it’s been done so much better only a couple years prior the inevitability is hard to fend off. However, where Byrne isn’t provided the story structure (and character development) required to provocatively suggest his supernatural power, he is given opportunity aplenty to graphically display his volatility.

End of Days makes sure to fulfill a certain quota. Blood and gore should garner nominations for their collective performance, attempting to cover up the film’s surfeit of shortcomings through sheer shock value. Outside of being paced like a snail, unnecessarily ambitious and poorly acted — with Robin Tunney at the center of that discussion — this is an often jarringly violent slog but at least the smatterings of bloodletting shock us into consciousness every now and again. They remind us of a story that is actually developing, but developing at such a languid pace it doesn’t really matter.

At the end of the day, Hyams’ film just isn’t very competent. I don’t mind (or much remember from the first viewing) the rehashing of elements from superior films in its genre, nor the laughably bad dialogue. Far more offensive is the fact it fails to develop any of its characters, or to even give much of a reason for anyone to do anything. I can get over the fact that Arnie haphazardly becomes the target of The Man in his apartment one evening. Hey, should you choose to spurn Satan’s advances he will become understandably pissed. I am even willing to overlook the inherent ridiculousness in early CGI rendering — with one sexually-charged scene coming to mind that seems destined to land on worst-shot scenes of the 20th Century — because, after all, this was before we knew it was ridiculous to think the world would cease to be after midnight on that night.

It’s a good thing that never happened, else I wouldn’t be able to continue enjoying my Arnie films like I have. His films haven’t really improved much but I frequently find myself enjoying them more freely than I was able to here. The lowering of one’s own standards is really put to the test in End of Days; that’s if you’re a fan of Mr. Universe butting heads with the Lord of Darkness in Times Square.

“Uh . . . Get to . . . the choppa?”

Recommendation: Frustratingly End of Days squanders its promise of delivering a taut and thrilling, action-packed story by meandering into too many genre cliches in an attempt to give color to a rather colorless environment. It features a likable enough cast who surprisingly show up for work without having really read any of their parts, save for Gabriel Byrne who is quite fun. Save this film as a last-resort option if you are in the spirit for watching New Year’s Eve-centered stories. This isn’t anywhere near as good as I once had remembered it being. Whoops.

Rated: R

Running Time: 121 mins.

TBTrivia: The role of Jericho is the first bit of work Mr. Schwarzenegger was able to get after receiving heart surgery following his role as Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin, two years prior. The actor had supreme difficulty finding studios willing to hire him in a “weak” state and it took a few days of shooting End of Days before insurance agents and studio execs finally backed away from the set, satisfied enough that Arnold was indeed healthy enough to shoot action sequences once again.

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.fanart.tv; http://www.imdb.com

Thomas J

My Journey Through Film

Tag Archives: #badactress

Clown

Hellions

Jupiter Ascending

Mortdecai

Blackhat

TBT: End of Days (1999)