Doom

Plot:

Space commandos shoot deformed people. (I refuse to sully the good name of the Marine Corps by equating them with these fictional wankers.) You can’t see anything ‘cause it’s too dark. There are no demons, no Phobos, no Deimos, no plasma gun, and very little of anything else that might have made this film good.

Comments:

There are some who have said that this film was doomed (Refuse to insert a pun here. Resist the urge Boggy, resist it!) from the start. That the art of video games can never be successfully adapted into film. To them I direct a robust and sincere farty noise. True, no film could exactly mirror its digital source without becoming tiresome. (To say the least) But to claim that no one can properly emulate the atmosphere and spirit of any work solely because it is of a different medium, is a feat of intellectual sloth on par with that of this film’s creators. 

No, the problem with this sad little plop of celluloid is that it couldn’t have less to do with its namesake. Like the first ‘Resident Evil’ film, there is no attempt made, not even in passing, to truly link this work with its inspiration. (I use the term inspiration quite loosely. This rancid work is inspired by Doom in the same way one might say that Charles Manson was “inspired” by the Beatles, or Torquemada by Jesus Christ.)

 Examining the plot of this film is like trying to write a 10 page college essay on the sociological subtext of ‘Big Momma‘s House 2‘.  Even if the story wasn’t hash, judging a slapdash sci-fi action flick by same standards as a serious drama is pointless on the face of it. I hope I don’t truly have to educate you as to the game’s original plot. Why, a more chilling README file has never been penned! (Keyed?) A lone marine is send to a scientific research facility on the Martian moons. Transporter experiments centered around ancient portals accidentally open a gateway to Hell. The marine can only listen on radio as the entire base is overrun with hideous monstrosities and all other living humans mercilessly slaughtered. He is hopelessly alone. Lovecraftian, eh? Now let’s examine what we have here;

An archeological/weapons research station finds itself under siege from unknown malefactors. To the rescue rush a group of wholly unlikable one-dimensional caricatures straight out of a grade-Z WW2 flick. There’s the gruff leader, the requisite slovenly asshole, the religious nut who quotes scripture while cutting himself (people who believe in things are icky!), the brooder with baggage, and one standard-issue nervous rookie. I might say the cookie-cutter ensemble was mean as a parody on the old jingoistic war films, but the movie is far too dumb to give the screenwriters any such credit. On mars, the company meet up with a sexy female scientist. (You know, just once in an action film I’d like to see a female scientist who’s a dumpy 65-year old lesbian.) Get this, she just happens to be the brooder’s sister! Like twins who have created their own language, the group speaks amongst itself solely in lame one-liners and sci-fi cliché’s. Whilst aimlessly meandering about, and occasionally dying, our merry band discovers that the creatures are actually mutated humans, who have had their dna altered by fusing it with that of the extinct Martians.

( Just a side note here. The whole Hell angle was the coolest part of the original games. Why jettison it? It takes more effort to write up this lame dna boloney. Not to pull a Medved, but this just smacks of PC anti-spiritualism. I mean, as shitty as ‘Resident Evil’ was, at least there were {very lame} zombies in it! )

This mutation is discovered to be the work of an extra chromosome, which only monster-fies folks with evil genetic markers in their bio-makeup. (Or something equally asinine.) I always thought an extra chromosome meant someone had Down’s syndrome. Then again, I spent most of Human Anatomy class wondering if my lab partner would go out with me. (The answer is, “Oh good God no!”, by the way.)

I refuse to mince words, the cinematography in this film is just plain shit. It’s as if someone spilled a bottle of India Ink into the occipital lobes of Paul Anderson’s brain. (Assuming he has one.) Everything is black and fragmented. The director attempts to build suspense by keeping us in dark, but without characters to fear for, nor demons to be intimidated by, we just wind up rather sleepy. (Question. Don’t research scientists need to see what the hell they’re doing?) Though the lack of lighting may actually hurt the film’s pacing, it neither damages nor aids the ambience.  Due to the small minded materialism of the film’s writers, the entirety of the action is tied to the sterile labs and gray hallways of a dim, empty space station. Lacking the panache of Tartarus’s pits, the film’s atmosphere is simply dank and uninteresting. Needless gimmicky shots add to the annoyance, the only effective ones being those lifted from other, better films. (Such as ‘Stargate‘.) The film is too slow to be hectic, too meandering to be thrilling, and too hollow to be claustrophobic. It seems like an odd complaint for a goofy action flick, but there’s precious little going on here. This is not to be confused with subtlety; the movie is loud, crass, and ugly. It just also happens to be boring as boiled turnips. Here’s a hint, it’s a Doom movie, dumbass, how’s about giving us some monsters!

 Ah! The monsters! Can mutated medical technicians even be called that? Stan Winston studios was called in for the creature effects, and I for one must ask why. No one can feckin’ see them! The company did a bang up job on the imp and baron suits, even to the point of making sure the scapulas of the creatures moved under their skin, only to have every effect turned into a dark blob by director Andrzej Bartkowiak, a man whose very existence all but justifies ever dumb Pollock joke you‘ve ever hear from your uncle. (Righteous indignation always leads me to 13-comma sentences.) To add insult to injury, aside from the aforementioned suits, cheesy “zombies”, and a cartoonish CGI pinky, the entire bestiary of the Doom series is ignored. We are never to see a cacodemon, cherub, lost soul, revenant, pain-elemental, or any other fan favorite brought to full, fleshy life. I piss on the grave of whichever of the film’s screenwriters pulled this mutant/psycho bullcrap out of his derrière.

 This is the part of the review where I talk about the acting. You may be waiting with baited breath for me to find yet another way for me to tear this flick a new Dave Callaham screenplay chute, well I hate to disappoint you. I may be venomous, but not petty; I’ll give credit where credit is due. Oddly enough, the performances in this piece aren’t awful. Players portray their respective characters with a rather high level of believability. And since every one of these pissants is either a total dipsh*t or possesses the charisma of  damp toast, this is to say that one can’t wait for them to be chewed to imp-kibble. I found some of Rosamund Pike’s lines a bit stilted during sciencey bits of exposition, but was shocked when I learned the reason for this; she was actually only affecting an American accent! Well-done kid, you fooled me.  The only one who comes close to in-authenticity is the Rock, whose just a bit too self-conscious for me to buy his character of "Sarge". Too his eternal credit however, his performance provides the film’s only true bit of tension. (This being based on my pre-conceptions as to who his character was. Another case of the film’s “artistic” liberties.) Though I foresee no Oscar nominations for him, (unless his agent has a breakdown and he’s cast as a  transgendered beekeeper  in some sort of petulant academy weep-piece) I will admit a soft spot for the big lug. He seems like a genuinely good egg.

And since this is the spot in the review where I satisfy my personal ethics by mentioning at least one positive thing about even a mess like ‘Doom’, I will say that two of the gimmick shots made me smile; The first being the Universal globe transformed to the Martian surface, the second being the film’s extended first-person view sequence. (Mostly as this segment was free of the asinine patter and insipid plotting of the movie’s full fecal bulk.)

 Normally, a film like this wouldn’t affect me in such a profoundly negative matter. However, this is not just another case of lazy hackery. You see, this film didn’t just disappoint Doom fans, it killed our dreams. Long ago, when news of this project first emerged, we were ecstatic, but years went by and no film materialized. Rumors came and went. (Bruce Campbell in the lead! Oh rapturous day!) All the while, while we doubted in our hearts that the movie would ever be made, we had hope. Even as time dragged on without progress, we were able to lay down our little heads and dream of what might be.

If there never was a Doom movie, we might still have hope of one. The rub is, this film has nothing to do with Doom, not one bit. So, even though it has been shot, released, critically eviscerated and buried unceremoniously in a dvd box, there is still no Doom movie! (I for a moment considered re-dubbing this film into some thing more appropriate, such as ‘ID just wanted to be done with it’ or ‘Let’s run from loud, dark, retarded things’.) The disaster is that this lump will be regarded as “the Doom movie” by the same type of Hollywood ninnies that crafted it. Case closed, project completed. We are far worse off for this film’s existence. It has murdered us all, just a small bit. For you see, not only is there still no Doom movie, now there never will be.

We can no longer hope.

We can no longer dream. 

For this alone, it should not trouble me any equally small bit if the shiftless and callous, the inconsiderate and incompetent, the Bartkowiaks and Callahams of this world as well as their quarter-wit apologists, were to roam the dark halls of Gehenna forever, with nary a slingshot in sight.

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