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Doom Takes A Shot At Gamers
The Washington Post has a piece discussing the suck that is a movie based on a videogame. From the article: "At the heart of this competitive marriage is this question: How do you successfully turn an interactive experience (playing an Xbox game) into a passive one (watching a movie version of an Xbox game)? For whatever reasons, the recent crop of video game movies -- including 2003's 'House of the Dead' and this year's 'Alone in the Dark,' both helmed by the German director Uwe Boll -- have consistently disappointed gamers. Someone even started a Web site called Uwebollsucks.com. Is it for real? A joke? No one is sure."
The first person scenes just felt like they were stuck in at the last moment when someone mentioned, "Hey, wasn't there a game behind this?" It was a half-hearted attempt to appease gamers, as if the point of view was what made Doom what it was.
Now, how did they completely ignore gamers? Well, the very thin plot of the Doom game was completely tossed out. Hell? There's nothing hellish going on - it's all man-made trouble.
It would be a halfway decent action movie if it didn't have the name Doom attached to it (The Rock is great) but it does - so I give it a 4 out of 10.
DID YOUR MOM SERVE YOU AN EXTRA HELPING OF DUMB TONIGHT?
This Washington Post article was utter nonsense. It had two things in it that really irritated me. First was the quote from the one student giving the opinion something along the lines of "it's not oscar-worthy" or something like that. I don't know about my fellow slashdotters, but I don't go into many sci-fi movies thinking they have even a chance at scoring even a nomiation. Second was that unnecessary shot at both the Tron movie and game. I loved both very much, not to mention the new incarnation of Tron (Tron 2.0) was in my opinion, a spectacular game.
It's easy to tell this guy is either too young to have a decent opinion, too old and doesn't understand the gaming culture, or just some boob who got assigned to do this story and just concocted whatever mess he was able to find with an "I feel lucky" google search.
I don't expect Doom (the movie) to be great, but why should I? the game had a paper-thin story, but it was still fun for what it was. A mindless killing spree on Mars and in Hell. It looks like that's what the movie is too. I will see it and in all likeliehood, enjoy it.
swanker than you
Doom has been a mainstay for the PC gaming industry for well over a decade. To this day it is still the pioneer for multiplayer deathmatch and cooperative games in general and as the foundation for first person shooters (FPS). If you play any game, whether it be Metroid for the Gamecube, Halo for the Xbox or any other type of FPS game, you have Doom to thank. Doom launched the FPS genre to stardom. id had previously released the WWII FPS game Wolfenstein but the genre wasnt credited as taking off until Doom came into the picture.
First off, let me say that since Doom for the PC first came out over a decade ago I have been a die-hard fan. I have been a fan since the original shareware version of Doom and will always continue to be a fan due to the fact that it has been the most inspired game that I played back in the 1990s. To this day I still go back and replay the game, both in single-player and multi-player. I am however continuously concerned about any video game movie that graces the big screen. They usually suck, flat out. Doom does draw the first exception I think I have ever seen.
The director, producers and writers seemed to take great care to stick to the storyline as much as humanly possible and took great pride in the story that the Doom franchise presented. With that said, let me give my review.
Doom starts off with a prologue. You see a few scientists running away from "something". This "something" pulls the scientists through ceilings, floors (ala grating them in many pieces) and various other methods of morbid slaughter. Dr. Carmack (obvious homage to the game's creator) sends out a distress call to Earth shortly before becoming food for a giant creature that blasts his office door open.
Enter the marines on Earth after a nice rendition of the Doom logo on the big screen. Sarge (The Rock) takes center stage as the leader of the marine squad being dispatched to the Mars UAC facility. Shortly after assembling his octet-numbered squad we find them looking for the missing scientists and trying to retrieve data for the UAC complex. Only a small portion of the facility has been compromised so there are still a good number of UAC workers on-site.
After a while, Sarge and his crew quickly discover that there is more than meets the eye. There is a serum which ends up being the culprit, turning regular humans into these "monsters" Apparently this effect is selective to only certain people with disdainful DNA. "The Doom Guy" (see how long it takes you to figure out who he is) ends up saving the day with a nice final climax against the obvious if you have played "Doom 3".
The BFG 9000 (Bio Force Gun, yea right) makes a very big appearance several times as the weapon of choice for Sarge.
The storyline isn't stellar but it isn't anything to scoff at. This isn't Friday The 13th Part CXII: Jason In Space or Aliens but the feel is relatively similar if you don't follow the game series. The writing could also have been more refined than presented but it will do for a casual movie.
Except for the serum the movie follows the game (Doom 3) relatively well. Dont expect the good ol flying heads or Cyberdemon: The most you will see are imps and zombies since Hell isnt involved in the storyline (though Hell is referred to continuously).
There is a 5-7 minute segment in the movie where you go into First Person View with "The Doom Guy". It is during this sequence t
Just came back from this. The BFG is labled as the "Bio Force Gun" (you/The Rock sees a schematic on a computer screen). When The Rock actually gets his hands on it though, he walks around it and goes "Big. Fucking. Gun." :)
Its all good
Just saw Doom tonight with friends and mixed company. We had a nice little demographic cut there, ranging from PC game geeks (like myself) to total noobs. And chicks, OMG!
:P
:P), but i'm probably trying to read into something that isn't there. :P
Anyways, if you're not a gamer, have never played Doom, or aren't the least bit interested in gratuitous violence - don't go. One guys girlfriend actually fell asleep during the movie, which was suprising to me given the abundance of loud noises, screaming, and overamped bass. However, if you are a gamer, have played doom, enjoy gratutious violence, and have a sense of humour - then by all means, go see it! You can skip the fancy theatres, just grab as many geeky friends as you can find, load up on your choice of alcohol/drugs/sugar, and HAVE FUN at the theatre. Yes its bad, but its bad in a good way. As long as you can let your expectations go, relax, and just revel in the stupidity, you'll have a blast. I sure did!
Now on to specifics.
Plot & Script: Yeaaaah there isn't much of a plot, as you might expect. 'Something Bad'(tm) happens on Mars. The 'RRTS' (good-guys) teleport over there, more stuff goes bad, people die, etc etc etc, curtain. What plot exists has virtually nothing to do with the videogame - no portal to hell, no 'demons', none of that - though references to hell are scattered throughout. The actual plot ends up being a lot more like Resident Evil. That is to say, bio-engineering + lack of ethics = zombies and other mean things. It's really fairly pointless, and although the movie does try to tackle the idea of Good vs Evil, Right and Wrong (and almost, ALMOST succeeding for a nanosecond), it just ends up getting in the way of shooting more stuff.
The script, unfortunatly, is just as bad. It doesn't even score points for having cool one-liners you can shout at friends later. For the most part its uninspired and just stupidly obvious. That, or its all screaming/yelling. Heck, the only real line I remember from the movie was "He has a condition. He's dead." or something to that effect. Its more like reading a cookbook than it is cool or poetic. Shucks.
Characters: The characters are a little hit and miss. There are about 11 major-ish characters in the movie (8 are marines), all fleshed out to various degrees. Some have lots of screentime but zero backstory (like Sarge), others feel more human (Reaper - this is intentional i'm sure). Some are funny/pitiful (The Kid), others just there for show & violence (Destroyer), and yet others who could have been completely cut out of the script with no ill effects (Mac). A big but expected dissapointment for me was the utterly horrible intro/outro of the characters. You basically have one scene that introduces all of the marines at once, yet doesn't explain jack about who they are. Then throughout the movie, people die, dissapear, and die again. The Samantha character literally crawls out of the movie and is never seen again 5 seconds before the credits. Oh well.
One thing the movie failed to do, or did very well (depending on your point of view), is leave the morality of some of the characters quite obscure until late in the flick. Is Portman evil or just stupid? What motivates Sarge? Is Duke a badass or a tender-heart? I found myself questioning the characters at times, which was both interesting and kind of revealing (asto how pointless many of them really were
Acting: Karl Urban (John 'Reaper' Grimm) is one of my favorite actors, and IMO he does pretty good with such an utterly craptastic script. Doom definitly does not feature some of The Rock's (Sarge) best acting however. A couple lines seem like they were almost flubbed but left in anyways due to the length of a cut. Overall however, he does get the "grrr soldier badass!" feeling out to you. Rosamund Pike (Samantha Grimm) is one of the best actors in the movie IMO, though i'm not sure if its because of