Doom Movie Review

Somewhat unexpectedly, last night my wife suggested that we go to see the Doom Movie. Tuesday is cheap night at the local cinema, and while I would probably rather have watched Wallace and Grommit, Doom was an acceptable alternative.

I don't really know why my wife was interested in seeing Doom, as she is usually not very keen on anything with gore, or horror content. My only guess is that she was somehow hoping to figure out what the Doom game is all about without having to make the effort of playing it.

We arrived early, and the cinema was crowded, but whatever it was people were there to see, it wasn't Doom. The cinema was almost empty, with the only other people in the place sat right in front and behind us - so much for the cinema's assigned seating policy.

The movie itself left me somewhat bored, and my wife complained about the dire shortage of monsters in the first half. When things finally did start happening, it wasn't a great deal more interesting. There were moments where it picked up, but most of the time you could see everything coming so far ahead that you got sick waiting for it.

The effects are decent, and from a technical standpoint there's nothing to complain about, they're not the effects I wanted to see. Also, much like the Doom 3 game, it's dark for far too much of the time, and you can't see anything. This isn't scary at all, it's just dull: looking at a black screen for five minutes isn't fun.

The direction and acting ranged from average to somewhat above average, but they weren't good enough to save the whole thing from the cliche riddled script with its woeful shortage of Doom. If you've seen Aliens, Starship Troopers, Final Fantasy Spirits Within, or most importantly Resident Evil, then you've already seen most of what Doom has to offer - except all of those films had more pure fun about them - well maybe not Final Fantasy: that was dreadful.

The decision to try and make some kind of horror movie rather than a solid action thriller didn't really work out for Doom. It so badly tries to be Resident Evil and just doesn't pull it off. Resident Evil has so many more interesting things going on, along with better monsters, a plot that actually twists slightly now and again, and it's just so much better written.

The most disappointing thing about Doom (for I didn't really expect much from it) is the almost total absence of DOOM in the movie: the backstory details seem to owe as much to Resident Evil as to Doom, and the monsters presented barely scratched the surface of the Doom menagerie. All the time I was watching I was waiting for the really cool monsters to show up, but they never did.

There is a stretch near the end where it tries to go all FPS on us: more of a joke than good cinema, yet it's probably one of the most memorable things about an otherwise unmemorable movie - it's only about two minutes long and really doesn't make up for the rest of the dullness. Pinky is also pretty decent, and works on several levels: he's a great effect (alive or dead), and he's a good joke, it's one of the better fights in the movie, there's a chainsaw, and he's actually a proper Doom monster, but beyond Pinky there aren't many more memorable moments.

In the end you walk out of the movie thinking, 'that wasn't Doom', and also thinking that you just wasted your time watching a really long and mostly forgetable trailer for Doom the Movie 2, where presumably the proper Doom monsters will show up. This completely cynical attitude to use of the license doesn't impress.

So, whether you are a fan of Doom the game, or of action or horror movies, you are better off leaving Doom for DVD rental, if you bother wasting your time on it at all. If you don't see it, you will not have missed much. I would recommend you spend the time watching Resident Evil instead.

posted by Peter Wake @ 12:44 am