With the millenium rapidly approaching, studios are making 1999 the year of doom and gloom. November will see the release of End Of Days, featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger doing battle with the bad guy to end all bad guys. That film will also star Gabriel Byrne, who plays the good-guy in Stigmata--a religious thriller that totally misses the mark.

Byrne plays a Catholic priest who travels the world investigating supernatural religious phenomena. He is assigned to a Pittsburg woman (Patricia Arquette) who has come down with a bad case of stigmata (the wounds of Christ). Arquette plays an athieistic party doll--who's not too happy about the fact that she is suddenly being afflicted with nasty flesh wounds and horrific visions.

Like The Astronaut's Wife, it's hard to figure out what the film wants to be. It aspires to be The Exorcist or The Omen, but never comes close to achieving those films realistic chills. Director Rupert Wainwright and screenwriters Tom Lazarus and Rick Ramage have tried to make a controversial, religious thriller that occaisionally shocks, but never scares, and ultimately takes a lot of pot-shots at the Catholic church that just seem mean-spirited and wrong.

Stigmata is a good-looking film, although some of the music video style editing got on my nerves, much like it did in Dark City and Armageddon. It also features an intrusive score by Smashing Pumkins singer Billy Corgan that gets in the way of any creepiness the film might've had to offer.

The films climax contains an interesting premise, but you'd just about have to be a Theology major to understand it. Besides, the rest of the movie sets it up so poorly that the message doesn't come across in a way that's in the least bit compelling.

Byrne is solid in a stoic performance too good for this material, while Arquette doesn't really do anything memorable. Ultimately, Stigmata is a controversial thriller full of a bunch of hot air. That's too bad because the coming attraction trailer was really good. Rest assured, the preview is far scarier than the final product.