Doom (2005)

Movie Info

The BFG is your new BFF

A rescue squad has been called to Mars when something happens to the Olduvai Research Facility.  Asher “Sarge” Mahonin (The Rock) and his team of marines are headed to Mars to find what the facility has uncovered.  The trip means a reunion for John “Reaper” Grimm (Karl Urban) and his sister Dr. Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike) who is stationed at the facility.  When it is revealed that a virus has been unleashed, Sarge orders it be stopped from reaching Earth at any cost.

Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak, Doom is the big screen adaptation of the popular best-selling video game Doom which was first released in December of 1993.  The movie was met with negative reviews and fans of the games also objected to changes in the storyline.  The movie received a Razzie nomination for Worst Actor for Dwayne Johnson.

Don’t worry Karl Urban…Star Trek is just around the corner…

I wasn’t the biggest Doom video game player.  I played Doom II a bit and have played other Doom’s on occasion so I didn’t have a ton of loyalty to the brand.  I went into Doom with this mindset but found even more boring than the first person shooter that many of the Doom’s slide into.

Doom borrows from so many sci-fi generic standards.  You got the uber-marines like in Aliens, the spreading infection like Residence Evil, and all set in a basic space lab setting…if it weren’t for being called Doom, I’d think it could easily have been called Dead Space (which I think is a scarier game).

People are saying what about my acting ability!?!?!

The acting for the movie is ho-hum.  I generally like Karl Urban and he is really the star of the film despite getting second billing.  With Rosamund Pike as his sister, Urban is the real driving force of the story…unfortunately, it is all caught up in being a story about monsters and guns.  The Rock was the star of the film and I really liked the line “I’m not supposed to die!”  I wish that had been the Rock’s death…the irony would have been appreciated in the flat movie.  Instead, you get a all-out throwdown-showdown with Urban for the end…yeah, the movie needed some action, but I preferred the death.

Wait…why does the movie look worse than the game?

Visually, the movie continues the generic term.  Gooey humanoid monsters take too long to show up and needed to be more extreme and different.  The most unique part of the film is when it goes into “first person shooter” mode and you see what’s going on from Urban’s perspective.  There allegedly was some ideas to shoot the whole movie in this format and at least then it would have been more original.

Doom is a pretty poor sci-fi action horror film.  The movie just doesn’t distinguish itself from the rest nor does it firmly pick a genre…I wanted this to be a real horror movie with jumps.  Instead you get a weak sci-fi movie and a weak horror movie.  With the bombing of the film, I think we’re safe to say that Doom II won’t happen.