: disappointed there may be a spoiler or two if you actually plan on wasting your time on this film (although its a good laugh), so fair warning.
Ahh Doom the movie..a classic video game made into a film that was announced almost ten years ago. There was such potential then, before the slew of terrible videogame-based movies were created (alone in the dark, house of the dead im looking at you). Of course, its almost fitting that Doom joined the list of movies that will eventually be forgotten for their good parts, and just rememebered as a terrible film based on a great game.
The characters of the film make or break it, and well, the cliche’ wastes of time they threw into the film are about as standard as apple pie being american. The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) played “Sarge”, a gung ho by the books leader of the troop that goes into the science lab. Eventually the leader becames the villian (shocking!) and fights the ever so cleverly named “reaper”, played by someone from the lord of the rings apparently. Reaper is your standard “hero who commits bad actions but for a good reason, and has morals that override his sense of duty”. Everyone else, who cares, with characters like “the kid” and “pinkie”(nicknamed after the bulldemons from doom 1/2/ultimate/master levels) you can’t be expecting much depth to them.
The monsters, arguebly the highlight of doom, were completely lackluster in their uses. The zombies, imps, a bulldemon (the doom 3 variety, not the awesome ones from the original) and i think a hell knight were the only characters who were in there, no awesome lost souls, cacodemons, revenants, or mancubus’s(mancubi?) to be seen. They were poorly implemented, and all looked rediculously similar (the imp and hell knight were virtually the same).
The plot, one of the few things I actually appreciated from the original dooms, became changed from the denizens of hell invading to a genetic experiment gone awry (some bullshit about an extra chromosome causing super human strength, speed, and intelligence, filthy). It was poorly strung together, and ended up being quite disappointing, even for an action film.
Speaking of the action, Doom had its fair share of it. The beginning of the film is made more to make you jump, but eventually it picks up, just not that well. Doom had all the makings of a moderate action film, nothing really stellar (some hilarious deaths, and one really great fight scene between a big black guy and the hell knight). It certainly was a terrible homage to the game, as theres simply no comparison between non stop slaughter in doom and the sparse, pretty spaced out action of the film. “Sarge” vs “Reaper” was an alright fight scene, nothing spectacular. The Rock did his trademark “nip up” from the ground, which was disappointing, because lets face it, the man needs to drop a peoples elbow in a film. Its not like the audience takes him seriously anyway. The one true highlight of the film was when Sarge finds the BFG 9000, which had its name changed for the film (weaksauce). He opens the door guarding it with a scientists arm that was cut off in the beginning of the film (which i’ll admit, was pretty cool) and just is fascinated by the sight of the BFG. His line states what every doom fan could ever want, “big fucking gun.” Watching him fire it was pretty cool, but nothing special. The radius of the plasma blast should have been much larger to really demonstrate its awesomeness. Oh, and Sarge slaughters a room full of scientists and children hiding from the demons as part of his job, but you don’t get to see it, which made me sad.
Essentially, Doom is something that a fan should see, if only to laugh at the many inaccuracies throughout the film. Without the Doom license, it would be a decent stand alone action film, but as a homage to the great Doom, it was a complete failure. Avoid this film if you don’t want to waste money, or see it if you want to laugh more than at a bad comedy movie (Duplex anyone?).
