What you see is what you get from Doom

Sadly, one of the most popular gaming franchises that has ever been has come to the big screen in Andrzej Bartkowiak’s 2005 installment of Doom, but it does not pack a big punch. The movie came out October 21, 2005.  Baetkowiak has been involved in other movies such as Twins, Dante’s Peak, and Lethal Weapon 4. This movie is based upon the video game Doom that has been both a computer and a console game.  Starring in this horror/ science-fiction film is Dwayne (the Rock) Johnson, Karl Urban, and the lovely Rosamund Pike. In all honesty, as a horror movie, I have to give it a pretty neutral review.

This installment of Doom takes place around 2046 and is about a group of Marines who are sent to a research facility on Mars where a massive archeological dig was underway and a “super human” race was discovered.  These marines were sent to the facility following a distress signal sent by one of the scientists right before he was killed by some kind of monster, who we later find out is a mistake created during the refabricating of super humans.

There are three main protagonists in the film; “Sarge” who is played by “The Rock”and is the leader of the squad, while Karl Urban plays one of the squad’s more skilled fighters named John “Reaper” Grimm, whose sister Dr. Samantha Grimm is played by Rosamund Pike.  One of the things I wish that the filmmakers had done was to give us some more depth and information about character backstories. The only type of real backstories we get are that Reaper and Dr. Grimm are siblings whose parents died at the facility twenty years ago. Without more to go on it inhibits a sense of connection to any characters besides those two and even then we do not get much of a sense of that due to the lack of character development.  It would really help us to understand why the characters are the way that they are, because of this it almost gives the sense that all the characters know an inside joke that none of the audience knows.

One thing that I have to give this movie a lot of credit for is staying mostly loyal to the game Doom. Although it causes some character development issues, the character in the game did not even have a real name and we knew nothing about him so maybe the film makers were trying to give a shout out to this aspect. They kept the weapons very similar to the weapons that are used in the game. One of the scenes that I was very fond of was a scene where Reaper used a chainsaw to kill one of the mutants, which is a throwback to the original ‘Doom’.  For a movie such as this, that is created based on a video game, audiences are going to be looking for things that connect it to the game.

This film seemed to be lacking. The film does not feel or look very well made and I was not actually frightened once while watching the movie. It is more of a science fiction action movie. It is the type of movie that I would sit down and watch if I didn’t want to think or have to pay close attention to plot or details.  However there was one scene where the camera view was switched form third person to a first person view of what Reaper is seeing as he goes on a rampage killing monsters. It makes it feel like you are playing a video game, which I found to be fun but if you are not a fan of the games then you might see it as cheesy and unnecessary.  All in all the movie was fun and the actors made it as good as it could get, but if you are looking for a high quality scary movie this is not the movie for you.