Well sorry to burst your bubble right off the bat but unfortunately
the concept doesn’t play out nearly as ludicrous as what you’re imagining. This is largely due to the movie treating
Lucifer (Gabriel Byrne (Cool World, Hereditary)) like any run of the mill
villain. His goal is to procreate with human
woman Christine (Robin Tunney (Vertical Limit, The Craft)) on the eve of
the year 2000 (eastern standard time of course) which will bring about the end
of the world. But instead of having a
laser beam focus like the T-1000 he takes his time visiting his worshipers and killing
skateboarders. He just bullshits around
like many action movie bad guys.
This behavior makes Satan kind of incompetent here. I mean when you look at the guy’s extensive powers
you realize there’s no excuse why he can’t get the job done in a few hours at
most. He can cause explosions, hallucinations,
murder people instantly, has superhuman strength, can resurrect the dead and
make them his foot soldiers, weaken people’s minds to do his bidding and his
piss is as flammable as gasoline. That last
one is by far the strangest attribute. In
any case no one stands a chance against this dude. And with all these powers it somehow still
takes him a day or two to find Christine making him look extra clumsy.
On top of that Satan has a whole lot of trouble fighting Schwarzenegger. These two go toe to toe twice and it’s no
question Schwarzenegger kicks the devil’s ass both times. Arnie definitely works for it though and takes
a beating in the process. He should’ve died
during one scene when a group of worshipers overwhelm him in sheer numbers but amazingly
even the all powerful Satan pulls one of the biggest cliché moves of all time by
letting the hero live so he can witness the villain’s grand scheme play out.
There are a few positives I wanna bring up though. Schwarzenegger plays suicidal alcoholic cop
Jericho Cane (damn, that’s ballsy to go for the double bible reference in a single
name) whose wife and daughter were murdered in some sort of retaliation plot. This is probably the darkest most grim
character he had played up to that point.
Since then he’s done this type a few times like in Collateral Damage
and Aftermath but back in the 90’s it was a little depressing to see him
like this. However, I think he pulls it
off. He carries the grief with him
throughout the piece. You can see it in
his face and he doesn’t joke around quite as much as usual. He’s also understandably dumbstruck when he
finds out the devil actually exists. I
like Arnie as Jericho. It stands out in
his repertoire because he takes it a little more seriously.
Everyone else is fine.
Byrne is serviceable as Beelzebub who goes a somewhat sophisticated quiet
rage route. I wonder if it was a conscious
choice to make this character an affluent white man in NYC. It’s doubtful the filmmakers were going for
any sort of message but I thought I’d ask that out loud.
Robin Tunney does as good a job as you can with a character
like Christine. This is supposed to be
the most important person on the planet yet she’s simply a damsel in
distress. She doesn’t do a thing to help
defeat Satan or aid Schwarzenegger. That’s
shitty.
The strongest aspect of the film is the cinematography (my man
Peter fuckin’ Hyams (Sudden Death, The Relic) also directs). Everything looks pretty great. The lighting is especially moody with almost
every scene being a bit underlit. There’s
also a bunch of smoke billowing up from beneath surfaces and a griminess to everything
as if to say “is this world really worth saving anyway?” And it’s cool when they’re stringing up
Schwarzenegger on a makeshift cross while it’s raining but Satan is the only
one who magically isn’t getting wet.
Overall this one has a strange vibe. The script is too generic for the wacky baseline
idea and the execution is a good deal better than it should be with some nice photography
and quick cuts in an effort to make the story more exciting.
One thing’s for sure, this isn’t as bad as its
reputation. I remember when it came out
and everyone shat on it hard. There are
some neat sequences like when Schwarzenegger is pursuing a mad gunman on a high
rise roof while dangling from a helicopter and the subway train scene where you
never know which part of the car Satan is gonna pop out from next. Also, the scene where the devil tries to
convince Schwarzenegger to join him is well done and enjoyable. There’s certainly some good stuff to be had.
This is what you think the entire movie will be but it's only a few seconds out of two hours |
Anyway, if the stars align this new year’s for Satan to come
to NYC and start a merciless reign of doom let’s all hope Schwarzenegger will
be there to stop the sonuvabitch cold. Have
a happy and a healthy and I’ll see you next decade! Byeee!
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