DOOM by Andrej Bartkowiak (2005)
14 December 2006I have been a fan of the game DOOM since college, when my sophomore year my friend and roommate B had it on his PC which sat in the corner of our trippy ass room in Web Tower at USC. We used to get stoned out of our minds and play DOOM. So I am a fan of the game, and enjoyed the latest initiation. On the other hand I did not bother with the movie. Sure ROMEO MUST DIE and CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE aren’t horrible films, but I only saw them because of Jet Li, and while they were funny they were not all that. So this film I stayed away from, but wanted to see the FPS action sequence, and when it was $9.99 at Costco, I figured why not? And it was OK, but not very good. They change the story from the game to be about Genetic research from an Alien Race instead of opening the doorway to hell on Mars, which is much more interesting. Also the creatures look like dudes in big suits, which is exactly what they are. At least computer animation could have made them look not human, or in movies like Alien they made the creature seem like it wasn’t a guy in a suite, but they didn’t bother here. Also the movie is damn slow, and there is no real military technique. Honestly the Doom 4 Video Game would have been a better movie, with the computer graphics.
In the near future, a portal was found reaching between Earth and Mars, and 20 years later they are still trying to figure out why. Something bad happened at Mars, and the UAC Marine Core has sent it’s top team to find out what happened, and search and destroy if necessary. We have John Grimm AKA Reaper (Karl Urban), Sarge (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Pinky (Dexter Fletcher), Goat (Ben Daniels), The Kid (Al Weaver), Portman (Richard Brake), Mac (Yao Chin) Destroyer (DeObia Oparei) and Duke (Razaaq Adoti). Sarge tries to get Reaper to stay, and we find out why, his sister Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike) is there, and none too happy to see him. And they head into the Genetics lab to see what happened, and retrieve UAC property, and all hell breaks loose…
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
The Marines head into the quarantined genetics facility, with the help of Pinky (Dexter Fletcher) who remains in the control room, and lost his legs going through the teleporter the Ark. They head into the facility, and Sarge sees the gun the BFG on a screen, and wants one. Then Samantha shows her brother a skeleton called Lucy that has an extra chromosome, which made then super human. She is pissed because their father wanted them both to be scientists, and he chose to be a Marine.
Then they get movement, and find the door that was ripped through in the beginning of the film. They find Dr. Carmack (Robert Russell) all covered in blood and holding a woman’s hand, and he rips his own ear off. The Kid and Portman find a naked woman, who the arm belonged to, who seems to be a zombie, and they kill her. Samantha goes with soldiers and take Dr. Carmack to the infirmary, where he babbles about shutting it down, and that they are inside. And Reaper finds someone who is obviously now a zombie. And they discover that there is something in the blood, and Carmack is changing. And Reaper runs into something bigger than human. Meanwhile Carmack’s blood does not match up, and he disappears.
Goat gets it first, being bit by a large demon, which Reaper shoots, but there are more of them. They give the body to Samantha to autopsy, and try to get to the transportation ark to keep the creatures out of it. They decide to go back in, and they have to kill everything before the Ark is activated again, and they can return home.
The lights dim in the lab where Samantha is, and she has sent Duke to go get a gone saw for her from down the hall, so she is alone, but he comes back, as the lights go down and a dog appears, but ti is the creature behind him that the dog is barking at, an they manage to kill it in the nano door.
Reeper starts to have memories of his childhood when his father died.
Mac dies quickly, and they chase it back to the lab. And the Sarge heads to the Armory to get himself a BFG a big Fucking Gun!!
And in the lab, the dead Goat, wakes up, and he is a zombie now. And Samantha finds that the monsters were human, and Goat kills himself because he realizes he is changing into one of the creatures. Portman is busy making contact with the outside world, while Destoyer gets attacked and killed. And of course Portman bites it, but his walkie is still broadcast a distress call for re-enforcements, but damn does the BFG kick some ass. They realize Carmack was the creature who was killed in the door. And they confront Samantha about the research data, which was experiments trying to add the extra chromosome to the humans. Reaper wants to destroy the data, but Sarge stops him because that is their mission.
Pinky then reports that something is trying to cur through into the ark, so the marines head to go and get it, but Pinky is gone, and the mission changes to get everyone out of there. Sam is trying to figure out what happened though, and they realize that whatever it is picking and choosing who it infects, and why the ancient race disappeared. When they discovered the formula, some became super human, some became monsters and some beamed to earth to be safe.
Back at Earth, it seems the aliens have gotten through, because everyone is dead. And the marines make sure by shooting everyone in the head. Reapers calls sarge to stop him because some people won’t be infected, but he refuses and keeps killing people. Duke finds Pinkie and The Kid finds some others who are still alive. Sarge orders them to kill all the people, and kills The Kid. Reeper and the sarge have a stand off, and Pinky pulls his gun, but gets grabbed by the monster, and Duke gets grabbed and then the Sarge, leaving only Reaper who is wounded and his sister Samantha, and to save him she injects him with the substance, and we go first person, as Reapers wounds are healing. This is what the movie is all about, and it is pretty good, with the best creature being Pinky who is computer generated, and we get to see the Chainsaw in action. Then Reaper finds Samantha, but Sarge is there, and he has been bit on the neck and he is changing, and killed all the survivors as the time on the quarantine counts down, and they square off, eventually going hand to hand, but with superhuman strength, able to bend metal. And Sarge begins to change into a monster, and Reaper throws him into the ark, and sends through a grenade as well, destroying the ark, and saving Earth. And Reaper and Samantha are safe, and head to the surface.
•••••
Wow I wrote allot, but I was writing it while watching the movie, as I was at the computer. As I said I didn’t like this movie too much. In fact, pretty much it stinks. SLow, not too impressive, and just plain boring. They could have done this so much better. I would rather have seen it not live action.
Skip this, unless you really need an action fix.
Feedback
You must be logged in to post a comment.