Omen-esque thriller in which Lucifer has precisely one appointed hour, from eleven to midnight at the close of the millennium, to mate with his preordained human bride and thus pave the way to his thousand-year reign on Earth. Whatever chances the movie might have had to be decent -- given, that is, the obscuring darkness of the photography, the nose-flattening closeness of the action, and the prescribed overdose of fistfights, firefights, fireballs, and computer-generated liquidy demons and smoky phantoms -- were reduced to nil as soon as Arnold Schwarzenegger was signed up to occupy the principal role. Or as soon, anyway, as his first appearance on screen, preparing an Osterizer breakfast of hot coffee, Pepto-Bismol, leftover Chinese takeout, and a slice of pizza peeled off the kitchen floor. Schwarzenegger doesn't play a role; he plays the audience. (Doesn't "play," in other words, in the sense of "to act the part of," but rather in the sense of "to use or exploit.") The ostensible role is that of some sort of law-enforcement agent who, despite his ingrained pragmatism ("Now I have to believe in God in order to solve a crime?"), takes on the responsibility of protecting the Devil's "intended," thereby ensuring that the transparent jelly-like entity that emerges from the New York City sewers will remind us of Predator, that the merely mortal adversaries (Vatican extremists) will remind us of Eraser, that the supercilious indestructible supernatural adversary (Gabriel Byrne) will remind us of Terminator 2, and that Schwarzenegger's strategy in combatting the latter will consist of laying his hands on some bigger guns. The one novelty that might not make us think of any other Schwarzenegger movie is the sight of him in a knock-down-drag-out brawl with roly-poly old Miriam Margolyes (Little Dorrit, The Age of Innocence). It might only make us think of laughing. With Robin Tunney and Kevin Pollak; directed by Peter Hyams. (1999) — Duncan Shepherd
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