So, in my local CeX the other week I was perusing their DVD section when I came across Doom for £2. Having not heard a great deal about it other than that it was crap, and having a bit of loose change in my pocket, I decided to take the plunge (I had nothing else better to watch, OK?). Whacking it into the DVD player I was treated to the Rock on Mars for no easily explainable reason giving the People's Elbow to demons from Hell while a banging racy soundtrack pumped away in the background and then I...
...stopped right there. I was all set to write a review about how this film wasn't so bad, that it captured what Doom was all about. But no. As anyone who has seen Doom will know, this is not the plot of the film. It should have been, but it isn't. As soon as the (shite) plot was unveiled before me all my expectations of the film proving everyone wrong evaporated in a big, bloody, pixellated explosion.
It begins with some scientist running away from some unseen nasty, in a purely expository sequence that exists purely to remind us that this is a film about nasty monsters. From Mars. So naturally the Rock and his gang of "elite" (ahem) soldiers are sent in to "SEARCH AND DESTROY" as a computer screen helpfully tells us. These soldiers include the usual; the fresh-faced new kid, the wisecracking black dude who says stuff like "DAAAAAYUMMMN!", the bad egg cynical type and the emotional killing machine with a heart of pure gold (Karl Urban). Naturally, bad shit goes down and the bigwigs who run the army and science station are revealed to be hiding certain things from the soldiers (I won't spoil them although you can probably guess what they are).
Of course, as with all video game movies, characterization is mostly crap (with the exception of a few), with the supposedly "elite" marines falling to bits, going to the crapper, jamming their guns and (my personal fave) ASKING FOR DRUGS IN THE MIDDLE OF A MONSTER INFESTED SEWER. I mean, what the fuck? Why would the government send such a group of largely incompetent jerkoffs to defend us from killer aliens? Worse than them are the scientists, particularly the Blonde One (I didn't care enough to remember her name) who seems to think it's a good idea to hack into the monster corpses for no real reason although she seems to have major qualms about killing them in the first place. They're fucking monsters! Kill 'em all! Why do you care so much? You can't cure them! Evidently the monsters are not demons from Hell but are in fact the results of a virus (sigh) which gives people an extra chromosome. The virus then "chooses" to turn people into slobbeirng monsters or... doesn't. Now, not even going into how the idea of a picky virus is complete fucking bullshit, how does this cretin scientist woman plan to cure an extra chromosome? Wouldn't that kill you? I'm pretty sure it would be bad.
Thankfully though, The Rock saves the film from irredeemable shittiness by turning in a likable performance as the order-worshipping Sarge, who does things as you'd expect an actual marine to do things and is such is much more endearing than Urban and chums. I mean, if you had a monster trapped inside a wall (more bullshit science at work), you'd plug it in the head wouldn't you?
On the whole then, I've focused on the more negative aspects of the film - it's a big dumb actioner with an insipid plot and it's woefully directed - everything is far too dark and hard to make out. And of course, there's that camp-tastic FPS sequence. Seriously, the amount of time a monster jumps in front of the camera and effectively goes "boo!" is too much to count. It's not done seriously nor is it as thrilling as the film would like you to think - it's certainly just played for laughs here. So then, all in all, despite what I've said, it's competently acted and the dialogue isn't too terrible unless they go on about the actual plot (which is far too much) and a horrible script written by people who have obviously never played Doom in their lives can be blamed for most of its' shortcomings. It just takes far, far too long to get going and then when it does get going it descends far too quickly into hokey sci-fi cliches that rip off Aliens far too much. Not even the appearance of the BFG can save this from tiresome mediocrity... however some (stress on the some) of the performances warrant some praise (Mr Rock in particular) for actually characterizing (some of) these cardboard characters to any degree at all, and thus Doom does just about enough to warrant the bargain bin prices you can buy it for.
Pros:
*Decently acted
*Big Fucking Gun... 9000
*Know your role and shut your mouth!
Cons:
*Bad script
*Bad plot
*Bad science
*Not even close to Doom
*Too dark... so actually quite close to Doom if you count Doom 3, which needs to be cast into the Atari landfill, so, I won't count it. So there.
Final Score
5/10
...stopped right there. I was all set to write a review about how this film wasn't so bad, that it captured what Doom was all about. But no. As anyone who has seen Doom will know, this is not the plot of the film. It should have been, but it isn't. As soon as the (shite) plot was unveiled before me all my expectations of the film proving everyone wrong evaporated in a big, bloody, pixellated explosion.
It begins with some scientist running away from some unseen nasty, in a purely expository sequence that exists purely to remind us that this is a film about nasty monsters. From Mars. So naturally the Rock and his gang of "elite" (ahem) soldiers are sent in to "SEARCH AND DESTROY" as a computer screen helpfully tells us. These soldiers include the usual; the fresh-faced new kid, the wisecracking black dude who says stuff like "DAAAAAYUMMMN!", the bad egg cynical type and the emotional killing machine with a heart of pure gold (Karl Urban). Naturally, bad shit goes down and the bigwigs who run the army and science station are revealed to be hiding certain things from the soldiers (I won't spoil them although you can probably guess what they are).
Of course, as with all video game movies, characterization is mostly crap (with the exception of a few), with the supposedly "elite" marines falling to bits, going to the crapper, jamming their guns and (my personal fave) ASKING FOR DRUGS IN THE MIDDLE OF A MONSTER INFESTED SEWER. I mean, what the fuck? Why would the government send such a group of largely incompetent jerkoffs to defend us from killer aliens? Worse than them are the scientists, particularly the Blonde One (I didn't care enough to remember her name) who seems to think it's a good idea to hack into the monster corpses for no real reason although she seems to have major qualms about killing them in the first place. They're fucking monsters! Kill 'em all! Why do you care so much? You can't cure them! Evidently the monsters are not demons from Hell but are in fact the results of a virus (sigh) which gives people an extra chromosome. The virus then "chooses" to turn people into slobbeirng monsters or... doesn't. Now, not even going into how the idea of a picky virus is complete fucking bullshit, how does this cretin scientist woman plan to cure an extra chromosome? Wouldn't that kill you? I'm pretty sure it would be bad.
Thankfully though, The Rock saves the film from irredeemable shittiness by turning in a likable performance as the order-worshipping Sarge, who does things as you'd expect an actual marine to do things and is such is much more endearing than Urban and chums. I mean, if you had a monster trapped inside a wall (more bullshit science at work), you'd plug it in the head wouldn't you?
On the whole then, I've focused on the more negative aspects of the film - it's a big dumb actioner with an insipid plot and it's woefully directed - everything is far too dark and hard to make out. And of course, there's that camp-tastic FPS sequence. Seriously, the amount of time a monster jumps in front of the camera and effectively goes "boo!" is too much to count. It's not done seriously nor is it as thrilling as the film would like you to think - it's certainly just played for laughs here. So then, all in all, despite what I've said, it's competently acted and the dialogue isn't too terrible unless they go on about the actual plot (which is far too much) and a horrible script written by people who have obviously never played Doom in their lives can be blamed for most of its' shortcomings. It just takes far, far too long to get going and then when it does get going it descends far too quickly into hokey sci-fi cliches that rip off Aliens far too much. Not even the appearance of the BFG can save this from tiresome mediocrity... however some (stress on the some) of the performances warrant some praise (Mr Rock in particular) for actually characterizing (some of) these cardboard characters to any degree at all, and thus Doom does just about enough to warrant the bargain bin prices you can buy it for.
Pros:
*Decently acted
*Big Fucking Gun... 9000
*Know your role and shut your mouth!
Cons:
*Bad script
*Bad plot
*Bad science
*Not even close to Doom
*Too dark... so actually quite close to Doom if you count Doom 3, which needs to be cast into the Atari landfill, so, I won't count it. So there.
Final Score
5/10
