THE STORY:  Why is everyone so down on this movie? Its not a great movie, and it certainly isn't the vehicle Arnold Schwarzennegger wanted to revitalize his career; it wasn't even scary..but I got off at least three really good smartass remarks while watching it! I'll try to go through with this with as few spoilers as possible.

Ah-Nuld is back! And this time he's back as Jericho Cane, an ex-cop that works for some kind of Security agency. Ok, that's the first part that's kind of silly. The name. Riddle me this...what do the names Johnny Storm, Oliver Queen, Luke Cage and Frank Castle* have in common? Why, they're all names of comic book heroes. Sound kind of cool, huh? When you see a guy or gal named something like "Jessica Blood" you know that character means business. In a comic book. In a live action movie it sounds pretty silly. Jericho Cane? Has anyone ANYWHERE ever met a person named Jericho? Ok, back to what I was doing...

Its just before New Years Eve 1999, and the Devil himself has a Get Out of Hell free card. He gets one every 1000 years so he can try and impregnate a chosen mortal woman and rule the Earth. But if he doesn't get to knock boots with the chosen woman by midnight on New Years Day the deals off. In order to do this he takes over the body of some banker guy and then he doesn't seem quite as devilish as I expected.

The woman is Christine York. She was born with the stars and planets aligned or some bull[unwrite] and that makes her the chosen woman. Her adoptive parents are devil worshippers and they're waiting for Old Nick to show up and do the deed. Christine has no idea about any of this, but she has weird hallucinations. Cane becomes involved in a manner I won't go into (this movie is relatively new and I'm trying not to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it) Cane's big problem is that he pissed off some bad guys when he was a cop and they killed his wife and daughter in retribution. So he's the stereotypical drunk-ex-cop-that-wants-to-die. Kind of like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon.

You know, I have a theory on why movies with this kind of theme usually have the Devil's assistant harassing us mere mortals. In the Dolph Lundgren movie, Fallen Knight, the Devil is trying to make a big comeback, but its his servants, not Lucifer himself making the fuss. How can you beat the Devil up? You can't just kick the Prince of Darkness in the balls! Face it, Arnold's action movies usually place him against foes he can pummel to a jelly smear, not the embodiment of evil. You'd think that the Devil would be a little too tough for even the mighty Arnold to defeat. Well, the Devil doesn't too much real devil stuff. He's evil and all, and he does mean things, but he actually fails to kill Cane when he has a chance and lets Cane throw him out of a window! Even the genie in Wishmaster had better use of his supernatural powers....and he had to get permission from his victims to do anything!

I don't know what made this movie as blah as it was, but it sure didn't do much for me. It was just there, and I counted down minutes until the final big showdown where I knew that Arnold would save the damsel in distress. I only hope Arnold's next Acton flick is a lot better. From now on if I want a cheesey "The Devil went down to Georgia looking for a soul to screw" movie I'll watch Prince of Darkness.

Christine was Robin Tunney. One thing about her...she has got same damn good looking legs. Seriously. Amazingly Rod Stieger plays a priest in this movie and he's as annoying here as he was when he played a priest in the Amityville Horror. I didn't catch this actresses name, but the nurse that becomes Christine's adoptive mother should be recognizable to fans of the British show Blackadder. I could be wrong but isn't she the same lady that was in the episodes "The Queen of Spain's beard" and "Beer"? Also, during the flashback Arnold has about his family's death, one of the crooks looked a like like Jim Byrnes who played Joe Dawson on Highlander: The Series. Kevin Pollack played Cane's best buddy, Bobby.

Best Lines: "Its official...I'm never sleeping again!"- Bobby after seeing a dead guy movie around.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:

1.) I can't believe it...I'd hoped we'd moved beyond this as a people...but here it is...a fake scare involving a spring loaded cat! For the love of Heaven, why? Why? That's so cheesey its hardly funny anymore. It damn sure wasn't scary.

2.) Father Kovak is kind of brisk with Cane. He basically chases him out of the church and those goes down to his secret lair without bothering to see if Cane actually left. So I think its too late to ask Cane to leave AFTER he follows Kovak and sees the labyrinth with the weird polish woman tied to a bed bleeding. (From stigmata). What makes Kovak think Cane won't go to the cops and say there's a bloody woman being held in a church?

3.) "No, I saw it too" is all Cane has to say when he sees one of Christine's hallucinations? An image of damned souls on an apple. (don't ask) The point is Cane doesn't have faith anymore. But yet he just saw that disturbing image. I'd have a lot more to say than "I saw it too!". (Like, lets get the F**K outta here!", or "I BELIEVE!")

4.) The ducking under a train scene would have been cool in an Indiana Jones movie, but here it was pretty stupid looking.

NUDITY AND SEX:  The Devil does two girls at once. Christine is seen topless for all of two seconds.

HUH?:  Cane is seeking answers for the weird things going on and the reasons for people being after Christine. He asks her why and she says she doesn't know. A few seconds later and she asks him what's going on and he says he doesn't know! Of course he doesn't know, Christine, you stupid, boneheaded, but beautiful gam havin' fool! He just asked you the same question you asked him so HE DOESN'T KNOW!

On the run from the Devil and his minions, Christine asks Cane for a weapon. So he gives her a pistol and goes through a quick run down on how to fire it. So she must not know anything about firearms. I'll be a monkey's uncle if I'd have handed her a weapon!

THE TALLY: The devil won't get his due with this flick. It doesn't deserve the pit, but it only escapes that fate for having the minimum entertainment value I required to keep the Inferno happy. I'm certain others aren't as happy with it as I am. (which is very little) If you rent it don't expect anything you haven't seen before. Its pretty much like any other Devil-comes-to-earth-to -[unwrite]-us-up movie with decent special effects.

*Just for fun, do any of you comic book buffs know which heroes I'm talking about? Email me if you can guess it without cheating. The answers are way down below. Scroll down to get them.

Johnny Storm is the Human Torch, member of the Fantastic Four

Oliver Queen is the name of The Green Arrow

Luke Cage has the distinction of being the first black superhero with his own comic book. He was Power Man.

Frank Castle is the name of the Punisher.