Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robin Tunney and Gabriel Byrne
Or, a better title would be "The Last Temptation of Ah-nold." Despite the presence of the wunderkind actor, the latest effort manages to be equal parts ludicrous, laughable and surprisingly enjoyable.
In 1979, for reasons left unsaid, a baby girl is brought into the world in New York City, immediately becoming jaded in the process. By cutting away to the Vatican, we see that this child has the nasty birthmark signifying the future mother of the antichrist.
Someone then hits the fast-forward button to late December, 1999. Arnold plays Jericho Cane, all at once an alcoholic security officcer working for an independent firm, the most loadedly religious name since basketball player God Shamgod and a small allusion to two WWF superstars. Symbolic meaning? Oh, who knows.
The next character we meet is that of the devil himself, played by Gabriel Byrne. As soon as the devil's spirit enters the human body, he becomes a womanizing, confident bad guy oozing machismo. From the first instant on screen, the devil starts his quest to meet up with the now-20 year-old child-bearer, Christine York (Robin Tunney).
Cane meets up with York after finding her name scratched across the back of a maniacal priest. A simple job becomes Cane's obsession when increasingly paranormal events start to fill York's life. Every day is filled with attempted murder and kidnappings both from "the bad guys" and Christian fanatics that believe the only way to prevent the birth of the antichrist is to kill the future mother.
Things slowly build until we learn that, as luck would have it, the devil must "get it on" between the hours of 11 p.m. and the strike of midnight on Dec. 31, after Letterman's monologue and before Dick Clark gets going. This time provides both sides ample chances to save the girl from the others' clutches and to blow things up and make nice explosions.
First of all, this cinematic potpourri has more hot and cold spots than the local park district swimming pool. Some of Arnold's dialogue is just plain painful to the ears, like the way he says the name "Thomas Aquinas" different every time. But to harp on every last excruciating minutia of ridiculousness would blind us to some very memorable performances and scenes.
Byrne, for lack of a witty or catchy phrase, absolutely rules in this moive. Although seemingly forever typecast in the religious/action movie (he also starred, as a good guy, in "Stigmata"), it is so easy to root for the devil to somehow pull it out in the end. So what if he has a smarmy, car salesman-ish quality to him? When he compliments a punk kid on his pro-Satan attire and then proceeds to run a bus over him, there is very little not to love.
The only bad aspect of Byrne's character is that many of his best scenes are alone or with cameo characters. He can only run off on Arnold and Tunney so much before their inadequacies as awful actors poke through the curtain of greatness.
Much of the problem results from just bad writing. It becomes increasingly more annoying with each passing scene to see action by action go by unexplained in a great effort to show more guts and fire. The best of action flicks at least give great buildup to the cinematic violence and give it meaning.
But to look into the faults of a movie capitalizing on Y2K hysteria is just not worth it. Given the timeliness, it can at least add a little more spice to the coming weeks and a taste of tension to New Year parties. But try and see this when it comes to your place of video rental. That is, if the new society has room for a Blockbuster.
The Northern Star Home Page
The Internet Movie Database
What other critics think - The Rotten Tomatoes Site