| Film Review | Dana Place |
Doom
Karl Urban
The Rock (Dwayne Johnson)
Rosamund Pike
Dexter Fletcher
Deobia Oparei
Ben Daniels
Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Plot:
In the future, a Marine Rapid Response Tactical Squad is
sent to an isolated Mars archeological base to investigate
and to eradicate a disturbance that is killing off members
of the research team. They quarantine the facility and soon
learn that their problem is much more severe than they could
have possibly imagined, and that a simple search and destroy
mission may have turned their crew into the first and last
line of defense in a battle of good versus evil to save the
planet Earth.
Review: Doom is a film based on the largely
successful computer and later platform video game Doom 3.
The game is a first person shooter with a plot that relied
heavily on over the top relentless action and surprises
around every corner. As a fan of the game, all I was
expecting walking into the theater was a lot of action, a
few one liners, but ultimately just some mindless
entertainment for a few hours. After walking out of the
theater I am happy to report they pulled it off and so much
more.
The Rock plays a hard nosed, by the book, marine named Sarge,
in charge of a rag-tag group of fellow marines that make up
the RRTS, or Rapid Response Tactical Squad. The movie spends
about 20-25 minutes introducing you to the characters, which
at first seems tedious and slow, but is later integral in
the attempt to explain why the squad is in the mess they are
in. The rationale is not only plausible but is a pretty
unique twist on the generic action plotline, and the time
the movie takes to flesh out the characters actually makes
the team seem like more than just cannon fodder.
That being said, Doom is still a “kill ‘em all, ask
questions later” type of action movie, and doesn’t make any
attempt to apologize, rationalize, or try to convince you it
is something it isn’t, as Sarge enjoys pointing out every
time the movie tries to veer away from itself. The movie
abandons the relentless mob of zombies and creatures that
the game is known for and instead takes a more
claustrophobic hide and seek approach. Something more along
the lines of Aliens as opposed to a Resident Evil
type of film. But the change works well here. The almost non
existent use of any kind of lighting through most of the
movie gives the action a high level of tension and anxiety,
and for the most part, is more than just random shooting and
blowing stuff up. The action is more personal, more focused,
and the deaths are unique enough to be fresh each time they
happen. Although as with most of these types of films, there
is a certain amount of cheese you have to wade through.
All in all, if you are a fan of movies like Predator and Aliens, I would definitely suggest checking this out.
A quick note for fans of the game: The BFG definitely lived up to what I imagined it could be, but I think it definitely should have been used a lot more in the movie. The movie takes a pretty daring turn towards the end of the film when Reaper (Karl Urban) goes on a nice little rampage of destruction, and it is all done in the first person, which at first is disorienting, but after you get used to it, it really puts you into the action of the movie.
