DOOM

Doom (2005)

Grade: C+

Starring: Karl Urban, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Rosamund Pike, Richard Brake, Al Weaver, Deobia Oparei, and Brian Steele

PREMISE: Some time in the future, high-tech Marines are dispatched to Mars to investigate disturbing, possibly earth-threatening happenings at a mining vault on the Red Planet.

RATED R for gory sci-fi violence, language, blood, and brief suggestive references

Now, in fairness, I watched Doom on television, so it was edited, constantly interrupted by commercials, and I was probably half-asleep by the end, but I did watch it right in the middle of a week-and-a-half-long sci-fi craze where I rewatched a bunch of my favorite sci-fi films (Avatar, Alien, Aliens, Predator). Thus, given the movie's newfangled, futuristic, but admittedly straight-forward humans-get-eaten-by-creatures premise, I was right at home. I've never played the game upon which Doom is based, but I enjoyed the movie about as much as you can enjoy one of these low-rent, no-artistry-allowed pics.

Plot: In 2026, technology has advanced far enough to allow people to beam back and forth from Earth to Mars, in the space of about a second. Thus, scientific researched has commenced on our red, rocky neighbor, and, naturally, things have gone wrong fairly quickly. A high-tech research station near a mining site has suddenly gone quiet, with rumors of terrifying creatures and infections killing off valued scientists. Enter Sarge (The Rock), and his team (guys with names like Destroyer, Duke, The Kid, Goat, and Hell Knight), who are sent to Mars to locate the scientists, and, if necessary, neutralize any immediate threats. For one man on the team, John Grimm (Karl Urban, of Lord of the Rings and Star Trek fame), it's personal, as the assignment destination means reuniting with his estranged sister (Rosamund Pike, who might look familiar from her roles in Pride & Prejudice and Wrath of the Titans). They know things are bad when the first scientist they find (Robert Russell) first mumbles to himself, then tears his own ear off, then disappears, but they don't realize how bad until members of the team start getting picked off one by one. When certain dead bodies start reanimating, and Grimm's brainy sister realizes why, they realize they have only one option: get back to earth and disable the transporter so that the monsters (a deadly, fast-acting virus that turns people into zombies) can't infect earth.

What Works?
You have to-have to-take movies like this with a grain of salt, and I did my best. Thus, I had no problem with getting characters to root for whose names are Sarge, Duke, Destroyer, etc..., and had no problem trying to figure out the idea of the "creatures" from Mars--considering Doom is based on a game where demons/monsters come out of a portal mankind found to Hell and kill people, I'd say it's pretty decent. In fact, they toss in some idea that the virus "zombie-fies" some people and merely increases the abilities of others, turning them into super soldiers, which makes for one heck of a mano-a-mano fight between two guys, each having gotten one end of the infection stick. Most of the actors are good enough (stop reading now if you didn't guess that character development isn't a big deal in this movie). Urban works hard and makes a commendable leading man, at least once you realize that he is the lead, and not The Rock. He also gets to be the audience's guide through an already-famous first-person-shooter sequence that last about five minutes and-I can't lie-is pretty sweet. Gamers will go nuts. Once the action gets going, it's pretty nonstop, characters die quickly (most of them without any attempts to give them depth anyway), and the last thirty minutes contain all the best moments. There's also a surprisingly-gripping part where, when one young man on the team questions Sarge's kill-'em-all orders on an ethical basis, The Rock's squad commander promptly threatens to kill him if he doesn't follow those orders (shades of Tom Berenger from Platoon). It's an impressively-serious turn of events for a by-the-numbers body count flick like this, well played by The Rock and Al Weaver.

What Doesn't Work?
About a week after watching Doom, I'm still trying to decide if Pike's performance as the stereotypical scientists was good or bad--kinda bland, I guess, which is often what happens to actors who spend a nearly-two-hour movie either rambling about science and protocol or screaming their heads off. There's also a consistently-and blindingly-obvious-foreshadowing to each big death (in a movie like this, does anyone who's left alone in some dark place ever make it out alive?). The special effects are okay-the lighting isn't always the best-and the end comes on very suddenly, though, in fairness, with a movie like this, once the baddies are all extinguished, that is the end.

Doom isn't about to become a sci-fi classic like those other films I've been watching, but for something I just stumbled across on TV, late at night, I found it quite enjoyable. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, there's an actual moral dilemma at one point that the audience can't see an easy way out of, and (get this) the primary virus isn't actually fatal. In this vampires-and-zombies obsessed age, there's darn near a miracle!

Content:
I watched it on TV, so I didn't get the full effect, but I can go ahead and guess: Doom has your resident action/sci-fi/horror blood and gore, plus plenty of profanity and suggestive references. There's also a good SHOCK or two as something jumps out of the dark-or out of a supposedly dead person's body-and consistently creepy/intense atmosphere.


Bottom Line (I Promise):
I actually kinda liked Doom. There's no character development, and there are gaps in logic and storyline as big as the Grand Canyon, but it's not meant for that: with a few intriguing key moments, plus a great climactic fight, it's about as much fun as a straight-up meathead movie like this can get.


Doom (2005)
Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak
Written by Dave Callahan and Wesley Strick
Length: 100 minutes
Rated R