Doom (2005)

No Hell, No Soul Cube, No Shotgun - Doomed

When it comes to game-to-film adaptations, we all know not to expect much: casual viewers are left confused as to what in the world is going on, critics are left to assume that the game is just as bad as the movie, and gamers have the pleasure of watching a favored franchise being systematically picked apart by writers who feel their story is more compelling than the source material and directors who have never even laid hands on a control pad. Short of Uwe Boll films and the earliest of live-action attempts ("Super Mario Bros.", "Street Fighter: The Movie"), no adaptation does a better job of showing just how incredibly unrelated a movie can be from the game it's based on, in the worst possible way.

In "Doom", a unit of marines (led by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) is sent to a research facility on Mars in response to a distress call in the year 2046. What they find is a base devastated by a monstrous force spawned from genetic experiments trying to replicate magnificent finds of the on-planet archaeological site...

You'll notice that I didn't mention hell at all in my summary. That's because in the movie, it has no place or relevance - thus, we have the biggest mistake the film could make. "Doom" without hell is like the Arthurian legend without the sword in the stone: it effectively neuters the story of its driving force. Indeed, the actors seem to drift rather aimlessly throughout what begins to feel increasingly like an "Aliens" rip-off...without the cool monsters, of course. Only a handful of Doom³ creatures are represented (the imp, the hellknight, and the pinky demon), and even they lack the abilities that made the game such a big hit - they just look like guys in rubber suits, without the terrifying speed or strength of their CGI counterparts.

With faithfulness to the game not a priority, you'd think that director Andrzej Bartkowiak ("Romeo Must Die") could at least give the film a healthy dose of action to keep it alive, but this is not the case: with the minor exception of the Rock/Karl Urban ("Out of the Blue") showdown at the end of the film, it's all poorly-lit gunfighting where the marines hit nothing. The acting is also a complete shot in the bucket: though Johnson earned himself a Razzie nomination for the film, it's Urban, Rosamund Pike ("Die Another Day"), Richard Brake ("Hannibal Rising"), Razaaq Adoti ("Resident Evil: Apocalypse"), and the rest of the cast that do the worst jobs with their roles - then again, you can't really blame them, seeing as they're little more than kill-by-numbers characters.

Chronologically sandwiched between the "Alone in the Dark" and "Bloodrayne" films, it's easy to see why the movie has already been put out of the minds of most people who've seen it. With the only memorable scene in the film being the lengthy first-person killing spree near the end of the film, there's really nothing to keep viewers attached to the film, unless they're die-hard fans of The Rock. While it's not quite as bad as Boll productions, it's nonetheless not worth the DVD that holds it, and doesn't deserve the respect of gamers.
The 20-minute special feature report on the actual game series is cool, though... November 5, 2008

doom

All around a fun movie. Hard to get involved with characters but they are entertaining. especially the guy in the wheelchair. (watch what he changes into) also, was it me or was that girl who stars in it high as a kite. I mean look at her eyes. Her pupils are totally dialated. Me thinks someone is a coke fan and not the kind you drink!!!!!! The end is for true doom fans!!!! Gotta watch this if you like the game or the rock. Also, to see what I mean about the girl, you have to watch in hd somehow. So much detail. October 17, 2008

Could Have Been Great, Just OK

I am a fan of almost Sci-Fi movies and video games, so am predispositioned to rate even "bad" movies as at least watchable. Sadly, this is the group Doom falls into. The premise is fairly straight forward and those who played game will likely enjoy seeing the monsters "fleshed out" (pun intended :-) but it loses a lot in translation from game to movie.

"The Rock" turned in a strong performance and perhaps saved the film almost singlehandedly. The special effects were great in some parts and fairly weak in others, which leads me to believe that there was more than one production company working on the CGI elements.

Overall, it is watchable and even enjoyable if you are fan of the genre. August 24, 2008

Intense science fiction/horror, entertaining

I enjoyed this film on TV and finally purchased the DVD for myself. The extended addition has a good number of additional scenes edited out for TV, although a warning is that the box says it is 1 hr 53 min, but it is more like 1 hr 43 min, with almost 10 minutes of end credits. The action is still good, even more so with the extra scenes that explain more of the action and the raunchiness of the film. It is entertaining and suspenseful, but this is also pretty brutal sci-fi/monster stuff. The male lead, Urban, has played the tough warrior in several films of this genre and does a really good job here. The Rock's character changes towards the end, doing a moral flip-flop that seems to be motivated by fear. The female lead is a puny, skinny thing with a wierd facial expression, always seeming to be surprised or shocked -- she's frail and vulnerable, classic wimpy female stuff, often screaming, and not the tough chick that has been showing up in a good many films in the last decade. A Xena type would have been a lot more interesting and fun than this wimpy one, who needs men to protect her. There are other drawbacks to the film too. I didn't appreciate the traditional female exploitation by having to have a fully naked woman so the slimy members of the team could make a move to rape her. That wasn't just demeaning to women but also disgusting and inappropriate, gratuitous rather than meaningful to the film itself. Also, the bigger problem is that most of the film is just way too dark. It's very hard to see what's going on. I kept turning my brightness up on my TV, but of course that doesn't help when the dark portions of the film are also flat. It just gives you a kind of fog. Of course, in the end the storyline is rather old, being more or less vampirish, so the film could have been done along more innovative or intellectual lines except that it is just an action thriller and so indicative of the weaknesses in the genre as well as the strengths. Overall, it was still entertaining, but if there is a Doom 2, it'd be nice to have the writers and producers come into the 21st century where women are concerned, having bold strong women rather than weaklings and victims. August 5, 2008

A BLATANT HACK-JOB VERSION OF RESIDENT EVIL 7.5 OUT OF 10

I must admit, Doom had much more potential to be a movie than most other games. It's not that it's bad, there still good to be had, but it just could have done so much more. I love the original Doom for SNES and PC, but the movie borrows too much from the first Resident Evil movie and doesn't really capture the spirit of the classic game. Not to mention the fact that I did not know that I would be stamping this film as the 18th zombie I've watched.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: A team of marines are sent to Mars to investigate a distress call put out from a remote research center on the planet called the Olduvai Research Station. Strange things begin happening; scientists are dead, terrifying creatures lurk in the dark and wait to eat and infect the soldiers, all while trying to figure out what Chromosome-24 does to the human body when injected into the system. The storyline just isn't that great, it borrows pages from the first Resident Evil movie, only Resident Evil told its story in a much better fashion in every single way and it was more explanatory.
GORE FACTOR: Limb-ripping, flesh eating, and even some chainsaw action, but there is very little present most of the time.
MUSIC: Why is this music even here? It sucks! There is not much present, and it doesn't fit the themes of the movie.
SCARE FACTOR: You will mostly end up laughing at its attempt to be scary, because it is not scary at all. The creature designs sure look great though, and seem to follow the game.
ENTERTAINMENT: You will mostly find it to be comedic, even though it is unintentional. Certain action scenes are quite entertaining, while others are just downright stupid. For example: The fight scene at the end of the movie. It's like watching a freaking Jean Claude Van Damme movie for Godsake (UUUUGGGGHHHHH.....). It does a decent job of ripping off Resident Evil, but it just doesn't really follow the spirit of the awesome game.
OVERALL: It's worth a rental, maybe even a buy if you're interested enough. Just don't expect to be wowed by anything.
THE GOOD: Decent gore, decent ripping off of the first Resident Evil movie, and it's funny.
THE BAD: Doesn't really follow the spirit of the game, music is awful, and the movie is unintentionally funny. August 2, 2008

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