Doom

I just rewatched Doom (17 years later) and was happily surprised at how good the film was and how much I enjoyed it.

Urban is particularly good.

I enjoyed the music and sound fx, however the visual fx, particularly the for the beasties, could have been sharper.

I loved the part of the film that goes in to FPS mode, super effective and really fun.

The weakest part of the film, the character of Pinky. He comes across as a bit of a flog and adds zilch to the movie.

For some reason this movie was considered a bit of a failure but as I stated I liked it and had plenty of fun watching it. Give it a go :)

*Warning* This review contains mild spoilers to the GAME, but not the movie.

A dig in the nevada desert have found a portal to an ancient city on mars. Since then, scientists have struggled 20 years to find out more about the civilization that built the city and why they disappeared.

Apparently they found something. In an emergency transmission sent from the science facility on mars a head scientist explains that there is a "level 5 breach" and quarantine procedures must be implemented immediately. A squad of elite soldiers are sent to the science facility on Mars to protect and retrieve property and make sure quarantine is kept. What they find is naturally more than they are trained and equipped for.

This is another game that made it into the silver screen, and the DOOM franchise isn't exactly known for it's multi-depth story lines. This made me seek out and watch this movie with plenty of ice in my stomach, ready to forgive the producers for mistakes they made.

And mistakes were made. The greatest one was of course to change the entire plot. As a gamer who put more value in story than the action, I would personally say that the DOOM3 storyline was better than the movies (completely changed) storyline. In the game the city plays a central role. In the movie you never leave the work areas, you never get to see the old ruins. The city isn't even mentioned beyond the intro. Beyond 2 <10 second scenes, you do not see the Mars exterior. You barely register that these events take place on Mars, not on earth. The artifacts that played a central role in the game is not mentioned or present in the movie. The entire "Hell is loose" plot was completely cut away, the events of the movie blamed onto something *COMPLETELY* different. The theme "one man against hell" became "a few men and their issues". The ghost of the little girl (one of the games scarier parts) did not make it to the move.

DOOM3 was also a horror experience playing both on achluophobia (fear of darkness) and Monophobia (fear of being alone), this was an aspect missing in the movie where areas was lit and the characters was always going at least two and two. I almost think the movie could have been better if they hired less actors and put more money on storywriters.

Another aspect completely gone is the ambient red tone of being on mars, something that could have added a more artistic flavor to the movie. Except for very short moments in the beginning of the movie you never see that these events in fact take place on mars.

I was not happy to see the storyline almost completely changed and the horror downscaled to almost not scary at all with nothing better added to it. There are no deep questions asked here, no philosophical submessage to the audience to go home thinking about. This is a lighthearted actionmovie and that's it.

The most faithful part (to the game) is the labs and the monsters. he developers who made the game gave the areas/monsters/weapons an unique design that wouldn't have been right to move away from. If you care zero about the plot, then yes this is DOOM.

There's also the first person sequence in which we get to follow a series of events through the eyes of a soldier when he runs around and shoot monsters in corridors. It was fun, although I would say that it failed to capture me. I was mostly annoyed with the choice of music and it could have been more scary.

I see some ways this movie could have been made better with the material it's based on, but I did not expect it. At least the action is well done. If you want 2 hours of entertainment that wont change your world, DOOM offers just that. If you do not watch many movies and want some extra quality when spending time on one, you can jump this one.

Game-movies so far are between "awful" and "ok". This one was "ok".

Doom is not a masterpiece. However for what it is, a video game to movie franchise, it does a decent job. I was watching this film when suddenly my parents came in. They immediately sat down and watched the last 50 minutes with me. Surely that's an indication that the film itself wasn't too bad. My favourite part of the movie was the FPS scene. It showed a level of originality which has been absent in other Video game movies, such as the Resident Evil franchise. Another Pro was the casting of the Rock as Sarge and Karl Urban as Reaper. Both made decent performances in the movie.

The level of action was decent and I was happy that the film branched out a bit further than the 90 minute restriction. Furthermore I particularly enjoyed the fact that the makers decided to use models and suits, similar to Alien rather than rely on CGI. It again shows a level of originality that implies the makers wanted the film to stand out and was not there just to make money.

The cons were that overall the acting was not great. The other marines for example, other than The Rock and Urban, did not put in great performances and Rosamund Pike, I think was particularly bad. They seemed an ordinary group of guys thrust into battle. They just didn't seem to act like a group of elite, disciplined soldiers. It just didn't feel realistic.

Another con is that the film was not particularly scary. The actual game is deemed to be one of the scariest games out there to play. So it feels an opportunity missed that the film was not a terrifying roller-coaster ride filled with suspense and was more like a variety of action sequences containing grim monsters.

All in all Doom is a movie which is by no means perfect, is a decent film for what it is. A video game.

I, unlike other people, did not find this movie to be a disappointment. I didn't go into this movie with high expectations. A movie based on a video game will never have an amazing story, or exceptionally good acting worth an academy award. A movie like this will have good action, reasonable suspense, and be the type of movie you can watch again and enjoy it just as much as the first time. For the most part, this movie lives up to those expectations. It has good action sequences, it is a re-watchable movie, and the storyline isn't quite as bad as I thought it would be. Sure, they changed stuff from the video game during the transition, but it still worked, and you cant expect everything in the video game to work as a movie, they had to change some things to help the cinematic view of it. I would recommend this movie to anyone who wants to watch a movie with solid action sequences and anyone who is looking for some fun with their friends.

OK, where must I begin. I might as well point out the bad things first in respect to the game. Now, what the hell was with the whole 24th chromosome thing? Makes sense to me, yes. However, what the hell happened to, well, HELL? These monsters in the movie were respectable enough to relate to the imps and hell knights in the game, but WHERE THE HELL ARE THE FIRE AND PLAMSA BALLS?! Where are the flying lost souls? Where are the CACODEMONS? where's the F**kin demon lord and spider demon for crying out loud. Maybe I'm being a little vain and asking for too much, but the monsters in the game were different breeds, and all came from hell, not mutated. The whole plot was actually somewhat too similar to Resident Evil. It p*s*e* me off. They completely abandoned all that the game was based on plot wise.

Now, as for the characters, I'm glad that they made it a team effort in this, and the characters were funny at times, but they seemed so underdone, except for of course, Reaper and Sarge, even Rosamund Pike couldn't add to anything in the film. I know I'm being picky, but blood and guts game? One man fighting to stop hell (or team effort)? Hello?

The good things were that they stayed on Mars, they had the BFG in it, but it was so underused. I think the highlight of it was the first person thing, which I feel quite gypped on because of the short amount of time that we see it. I feel like they just put it in there for the game fans so they'd have their glory, and I am a die hard doom fan, but i feel somewhat insulted by it. They have had plenty of technology available to them to make this so much better, but they didn't use what they could've had available to them. Maybe if ID worked with them on it, it wouldn't have been such a disappointment, but this was just insulting to us gamers once again. however, a SMALL improvement when it comes to other VG movies. The action was however enjoyable, and the fight at the end made it fun, but I almost felt like Rock had to do it to show off that he still has his smack-down glory. Oh well, lets see if they don't butcher Halo. (God Forbid)

5/10