Rating of
1/4
An Awful + Insulting Mess
ZJW - wrote on 05/16/09
Maybe I wouldn’t hate it so much if it didn’t carry the title DooM, but something tells me it would still be a subpar action flick with a vague story and one-dimensional characters. Being it does carry the title DooM this movie will forever piss me off for ruining and heavily disregarding the game for which it is based.
The plot of the game is a rather simple one. A government organization begins experimenting with opening portals and gateways and inadvertently open a portal to Hell. From there hoards of Demons scourge the Mars base and it is left to an uncanny soldier to fight them back. The story elements of this used in the film? It’s on Mars and there are some soldiers who have arrived to look into a few unfortunate mishaps.
The star if this film is ‘The Rock’. You would think that being the big star and the man with the BFG he would be the ‘Doom Guy’ but this movie begs to differ. He even claimed to be ‘the Doom Guy’ while promoting this film on The Daily Show but no; this movie would have us believe that John “Reaper” Grimm is ‘the Doom Guy’. I suppose the filmmakers think themselves clever for establishing ‘The Rock’ as our hero and switching it off midway through. Instead, it comes off as rather forced, which is likely a result of poor acting, and insulting to fans of the game.
Of course the plot in it's entirety is insulting to fans of the game. Instead of Demons from Hell we have experiments being conducted using a 24th chromosome that was discovered by an ancient Martian civilization. This 24th chromosome, should you be evil spirited, turns you into a twisted a mutated creature that is unrecognizable as anything from the Doom games. You could argue that it's an Imp but… it’s not.
The film is also lacking in quality action as well as any real sense of fear, something the games excelled at. In addition, while money was clearly spent on creating the Mars station, so much of the film takes place in dark corridors and sewers. One of the more interesting elements occurs when it actually uses the first-person technique. I guess the filmmakers thought this necessary - they even said so. I won't complain as most of the films action occurs during this sequence, leading up to the (subpar) final showdown between him and the now evil Sarge.
Overall this film is a travesty of all the game was and is. The only plot elements used are the setting and a military presence. I’m really not certain why they couldn’t have simply used the story from their source material. There is very little redeeming about this film. It occasionally looks good and features a somewhat solid soundtrack but other than that is a waste of time. It’s really sad to see such a great game be transformed into such a terrible film. O & one more thing – “You can’t shield a baby from time”.
