End Of Days (1999)

(In theaters, November 1999) Watching this film is a lot like watching a festival of missed opportunities, botched execution and amateur moviemaking with occasional flashes of interest. Arnold Schwarzenegger is back in a more vulnerable role (the scene where he throws away his gun was a nice bit) and Gabriel Byrne rises above the material, but everyone else just got their paycheck and left running. The script is awful, with predictable dialogue and contrived plotting (eg; how they figure out the girl’s name) Peter Hyams’ direction is a step backward from his previous efforts, throwing everything haywire in a flurry of MTV editing that barely makes sense. The action scenes are so incoherent that they actually lessen the film’s impact. Robin Tunney looks like a crack addict escaped from the set of Rosemary’s Baby. Not a major disappointment -after all, there are a few good *intentions*- but nothing near even a marginal success either. Best line: “Eastern time?”