Watching END OF DAYS I got the distinct impression this movie had problems in the early production stage . The story as revealed at the start of the film involves two sets of the clergy , one of which is trying to protect a young virgin from the clutches of Satan while the other set is trying to murder her so he won`t mate with her . So far so good , so why include the character of Jerico Cane , a burned out suicidal cop ? After all the story could have worked without his inclusion even though it may have been too similar to THE FINAL CONFLICT in feel and execution , but I still feel Cane didn`t have to be included while the role of the hero could easily have gone to a good guy priest . Worse still Jerico Cane is played by big Arnie which means through box office necessity ( ie box office bucks ) instead of END OF DAYS being a haunting supernatural drama it ends up being a supernatural action/adventure movie that doesn`t work . It should also be pointed out that Arnie doesn`t have the acting range to play a burned out sucidal cop . How about this as a casting premise: Anthony Hopkins plays a disillusioned priest trying to save Christine York from Satan . Doesn`t that sound a whole lot better ?
Not to be too negative the story is interesting in places , and I`m sure the first draft of the script was very moody and atmospheric until the screenplay was re-written to death . Gabriel Byrne plays Satan with the exact right mixture of charm and menace which leads me to believe he`d be the perfect choice as The Master if Hollywood ever make a big budget screen version of DOCTOR WHO . Peter Hyams direction while not perfect is far better than much of his work in recent years and does manage to inject a fair amount of mood into his work . But at the end of the day ( Pun intended ) this movie would have worked a lot better if we had an acting star instead of an action star as the hero
Not to be too negative the story is interesting in places , and I`m sure the first draft of the script was very moody and atmospheric until the screenplay was re-written to death . Gabriel Byrne plays Satan with the exact right mixture of charm and menace which leads me to believe he`d be the perfect choice as The Master if Hollywood ever make a big budget screen version of DOCTOR WHO . Peter Hyams direction while not perfect is far better than much of his work in recent years and does manage to inject a fair amount of mood into his work . But at the end of the day ( Pun intended ) this movie would have worked a lot better if we had an acting star instead of an action star as the hero