VIDEO VISIONS - DOOM!

It took 12 years for ID software's game changing release to find it's way on to the big screen and was met with mixed reviews. The original game released as a 1 level shareware download back in 1993 changed the world of PC gaming for good with it's blend of pseudo 3D ultra violence, occult imagery and sci-fi themes and was probability the most played game in the world next to Streetfighter II at that time but was the film any good?

DOOM: The Movie is a  great laugh!

Andrzej Bartkowiak takes the directors chair and he does a smashing job of brining us a big, dumb and very slick action sci-fi. There are no potential Oscar nominations here, there are no deeper meanings or clever layers to be had, it's just good old fashioned action bang bang sci-fi.

Very tough hombres...oops wrong franchise!

DOOM is devoid of any originality whatsoever but that does not mean it's lacking in imagination. The story is some thin but reasonable clap trap about stuff going tits up on a scientific research facility on Mars and a group of rock hard commandos goes in to sort it all out. The film rips off just about ever major action or sci-fi film that it can handle and we see shades of films like Predator and most obviously James Cameron's Aliens as well as a few zombie movies thrown in for good measure. The trick here is that it makes up for any glaring unoriginality by ramping up the quality and the end result is a ripping good slice of braindead fun!

The production is brilliant! All the sets are usual sci-fi corridor fare but really have a nice grimy feel to them with some quality CGI in places too. The practical effects are top notch with buckets of gore everywhere and some really fucking cool monsters which look well disgusting, especially in the scene where Sam Grimm is performing an autopsy on one and the film has tons of imaginative things too. As well as the monster designs themselves there are clever touches like the Ark teleporter, nano walls, horrible sewer systems, Pinky's chair plus some cool weapons and general tech.

Some pretty neat tech

The really shocking thing about DOOM is that the characters are surprisingly well fleshed out which is odd considering their job as mere canon fodder in the film. All of them are very memorable and each with their own personality quirks which make them stand out. Richard Brake is the highlight as the sleazy grinning Portman but all of them have their traits from the grunt who cuts himself every time he blasphemes to the nervous kid on his first mission. Razaaq Adoti gets a lot of screen time ad Duke who is a sweet tongued and mouthy lab guard for much of the action and gets to see a few things happen first hand. They are all highly distinguishable from each other which is a feature a LOT of these kinds of films get wrong so much praise for keeping the cast reasonably small and injecting a bit of personality into them. Karl Urban is the semi-main character in the film and he's serviceable enough for having the most backstory and Roseamond Pike plays the pretty scientist who is pretty much the survivor of what is happening on the Martian base . The Rock plays Sarge the commander of the soldier unit and while he does his job well I can't help but think someone else would have been better. The problem is that when you see The Rock on screen you see The Rock and not the character he's playing which can often break the suspension of disbelief.

DOOM's biggest flaw and probably the reason it failed is that it's not really anything like it's game namesake. It completely drops the 'one man Merc blasting his way through Hell' theme for a much more sci-fi based setting. The Satanic imagery has been totally removed (sensitive U.S. Audience perhaps?) and it doesn't feel anything like the game whatsoever. There are continual references to things in the game however and the script tries it's best to drop in familiar nuggets and names which is really cool. In saying all that the film has an extremely similar if not identical feel to the DOOM 3 game which if memory served was released round about the same time and really feel much more like a film version of that particular release so with that in mind it is pretty accurate. The Mars lab setting and back story are almost identical to the game and even some of the monster designs have obviously been heavily influenced by DOOM 3.

Give us a kiss

The tone of the film is you're usual desolate & claustrophobic deal it has to be said but there are moments of genuine tension and some character development that is pretty cool in a nasty sort of way. The jewel in the crown is that in the last third of the film there is a sequence where the action turns into a fully first person perspective affair which completely mimics the game mechanics. This is handled excellently and it's great fun seeing all the monsters getting offed in a number of deliciously nasty and funny ways (literally) right in front of you.

The wise decision was also made to not make this for kids. There is buckets of gore and blood and horrible things that people do to each other (and themselves) and it adds to the tense feel that you are really in total danger.

FPP ACTION!

So there it is, DOOM is a big stupid slice of well crafted fun. It shamelessly rips off other films but manages to do it far better than most lesser examples of the genre and the whole thing is wrapped up in a very polished, good looking and imaginative sci-fi blastathon.

It is perhaps a perfect example of the saying “it doesn't have to be original as long as it's done well!” and DOOM does it very well indeed.

Put your inner snob aside and enjoy some great blasting action!

Striding forth from his lair at Castle Stareskull one morning, Prototron decided to not reign down terror on the villagers, but instead go back inside, crack open a beer and load up Streets Of Rage 2. One hundred years later, he's still there.  A avid music maker (of TERROR!) and retro gamer, he can be found whooping any and all heroes at all manner of SNK-based challenges.