Marlowe's stunningly illiterate script (which manages to make The Omen's author David Seltzer's work read like the sublime visions of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin) to jobbing journeyman Peter Hyams' nuts-and-bolts direction (he was brought on board to join the dots when feature first-timer Marcus Nispel was passed over), the entire film looks and feels like nothing more than a cynical salvaging exercise. The problems with End of Days are legion. Idiotic beyond the point of redemption, this sinfully stupid farrago manages to insult audiences and critics, Christians and Satanists alike, reducing 2000 years of fertile mythology to the level of an incoherent pop video. "I've seen a lot," says Arnold Schwarzenegger in the middle of this abysmally lumpen cross between The Omen (1976) and Lethal Weapon, "but nothing that would make me cut out my tongue!" End of Days is dreadful enough to make most viewers consider gouging out their eyes in order to avoid seeing a second time the spectacle of the world's most wooden actor pretending to undergo a spiritual crisis. Satan is defeated finally by Cane, who sacrifices himself to save Christine. Having failed to tempt Cane with the return of his deceased wife and child, Satan enters Kovak's church and attempts to deflower Christine while engaging in a violent battle with Cane. Overcoming a horde of attackers, including Christine's nanny Mabel, Cane persuades Father Kovak and his band of priests not to kill Christine but to protect her in their church. The prince of darkness wishes to impregnate Christine with his child on the eve of the new millennium thereby bringing about the "end of days" foretold in the Book of Revelations. Cane and his partner Chicago trace the now-grown Christine York who is being pursued by both a priestly hit squad and by Cane's Wall Street client, who is possessed by Satan. However, he learns of a Vatican conspiracy to prevent the birth of the Antichrist. Aquinas rants about the "end of days" before he dies, but when his body is discovered to lack a tongue, Cane suspects he's gone mad himself. December 1999, renegade priest Thomas Aquinas' assassination attempt on a Wall Street banker is foiled by bodyguard Jericho Cane. Christine York is born and secretly anointed by a satanic cult. Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
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