261 Days of Horror, Day 1: Doom
Jan. 1st, 2007 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiDoom. 2005. Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak. Written by Dave Callahan and Wesley Strick. Released by Universal.
(Because what better way to kick off the New Year than with Doom, right?)
I can almost picture the conversation between Doom director Andrzej Bartkowiak and the studio after the first screening:
Studio Honcho: So, what's the deal with Rosamund Pike's accent?
Bartkowiak (shifting in his seat): Well, um, there was a whole backstory explaining how her parents were part of a radical cult of "accent freedom fighters," and they felt that giving their daughter an accent that shifted between British and American would help bring down the harmful hegemony that accents create.
Studio Honcho: Seriously? And here I thought she was just a lousy actress.
Bartkowiak: Well, we also didn't really have enough time for reshoots. And if I'd had her re-record all her lines with a British accent, we'd have to re-shoot Karl Urban's scenes, since he plays her brother, and he's the star of the film.
Studio Honcho: Speaking of that, how'd that happen? I thought it was supposed to be The Rock.
Bartkowiak: Yeah, well, we figured most folks would go in expecting that, and having him end up as the bad guy would make for a nice twist.
Studio Honcho: I like it. But getting back to Pike -- next time, just let us know, and we'll find someone who can act. I mean, Kate Beckinsale can do an American or a British accent, and she'll take any script that lands on her desk.
Bartkowiak: True.
Studio Honcho: Plus, she's hotter in leather.
The good news about Doom is that it doesn't blow nearly as much as I expected it to. That's largely because of the decision to use Bartkowiak -- a great photographer and cinematographer -- as the director. Although Bartkowiak still hasn't proven himself as a director (Exit Wounds, anyone?), he clearly understands the visual elements involved in the Doom franchise. This means that it's actually possible to follow the action on screen.
The bad news is that Doom still isn't very good. More on that in a second.
The surprising news is that it's also wretchedly unfaithful to the games. No Hell here, folks. This time, it's just Science Gone Too Far, as the plot involves an experiment (featuring alien DNA) that transforms people based on how evil or good (to use the proper scientific terms*) they are. So evil people become zombies (and eventually mutate into something resembling the imps and hell knights of the game, although without the fireballs). And good people -- of which there appears to be exactly one -- turn into tough marines who can kick zombie ass.
So, needless to say, the first real problem with the film is the plot, which is pretty solidly by-the-numbers ("Look! Another marine just got killed!") for two-thirds of the movie, and only takes a briefly interesting turn when it becomes clear that The Rock is going to turn out to be "scientifically" evil and become a bad guy. The holes up to this point are enormous -- from the good Christian soldier who kills himself (in zombie form) to prevent him from hurting his friends (even though he's good, and should therefore become a superhero) to the cliched set of experiments undertaken by Dr. Carmack (get it, fans of the game?) using alien DNA modifying technology on human subjects without anyone outside his lab knowing.
The holes wouldn't matter as much if the movie actually offered anything new or unique. This is pretty much every Aliens rip-off rolled up into one, with nothing new added to the genre. The marines are as generic, the scientists as misguided, and the dialogue as corny as in every other film of this nature. Hell, if you'd removed the title and told me this was Xtro 4, I'd believe you.
If the plot holes are bad, the acting is worse. The Rock and Karl Urban both do passable jobs, but Rosamind Pike turns in one of the lousiest performances I've seen on the screen in ages. And once we get past the "not-so-big" three actors, we're stuck with the no-names playing the marines, almost all of whom have the same accent problems Pike does (if you're going to only hire British actors for minor parts, why not have them use British accents? Especially when the movie's set in the future, and there's no reason they can't be British?). The lone exception is Richard Brake, whose cowardly Portman character (a near-swipe of Bill Paxton's Hudson character from Aliens) keeps the movie moving along nicely.
As I mentioned earlier, Bartkowiak does a nice job with the look of the film, and actually makes the most notorious scene -- Karl Urban's first-person fight against the zombies -- work surprisingly well. Lots of folks complained about the cheesiness of including it, but given the fact that Doom is a largely plotless game, capitalizing on the fact that it served as the tipping point for first-person shooters makes sense; it's the one element of the movie that actually feels inspired by the game itself. The gore effects are also pretty good, although not nearly as prevalent as we might have expected from the games. Viewers who expect still-beating hearts on pedestals around every corner are going to be disappointed. That said, there's a respectable amount of blood and gore, without the pandering so prevalent in torturebation films like Hostel and Turistas.
One bonus moment of visual amusement: A wheelchair-bound character eventually mutates into the only pink bull-demon we see in the movie. The thing is, to let us know that this is the same character (named, appropriately enough, "Pinky"), the wheelchair has somehow remained grafted to the butt of the pink demon. So there's an entire "intense" fight scene that's completely undercut by the fact that the bad guy has a case of wheelchair ass.
There's a trend that gamers (especially ones with kids) are all too familiar with. A popular movie license will be made into a game. Instead of creating a game from scratch that matches the strengths of that license, an existing game sitting on the shelf is used, with images and dialogue from the movie grafted on. It usually results in a weak product that even the kids playing it can identify a a waste of time.** Doom feels like the reverse of that process. Take away about four lines of dialogue, one character's name, and one five-minute camera sequence, and you've got a script that could have been sitting on the shelf for twenty years. There's a little bit of fun to be had here, but not enough to justify paying to see this movie.
*Seriously.
**Yes, there are exceptions, like Shrek 2, but they're few and far between.
(Because what better way to kick off the New Year than with Doom, right?)
I can almost picture the conversation between Doom director Andrzej Bartkowiak and the studio after the first screening:
Studio Honcho: So, what's the deal with Rosamund Pike's accent?
Bartkowiak (shifting in his seat): Well, um, there was a whole backstory explaining how her parents were part of a radical cult of "accent freedom fighters," and they felt that giving their daughter an accent that shifted between British and American would help bring down the harmful hegemony that accents create.
Studio Honcho: Seriously? And here I thought she was just a lousy actress.
Bartkowiak: Well, we also didn't really have enough time for reshoots. And if I'd had her re-record all her lines with a British accent, we'd have to re-shoot Karl Urban's scenes, since he plays her brother, and he's the star of the film.
Studio Honcho: Speaking of that, how'd that happen? I thought it was supposed to be The Rock.
Bartkowiak: Yeah, well, we figured most folks would go in expecting that, and having him end up as the bad guy would make for a nice twist.
Studio Honcho: I like it. But getting back to Pike -- next time, just let us know, and we'll find someone who can act. I mean, Kate Beckinsale can do an American or a British accent, and she'll take any script that lands on her desk.
Bartkowiak: True.
Studio Honcho: Plus, she's hotter in leather.
The good news about Doom is that it doesn't blow nearly as much as I expected it to. That's largely because of the decision to use Bartkowiak -- a great photographer and cinematographer -- as the director. Although Bartkowiak still hasn't proven himself as a director (Exit Wounds, anyone?), he clearly understands the visual elements involved in the Doom franchise. This means that it's actually possible to follow the action on screen.
The bad news is that Doom still isn't very good. More on that in a second.
The surprising news is that it's also wretchedly unfaithful to the games. No Hell here, folks. This time, it's just Science Gone Too Far, as the plot involves an experiment (featuring alien DNA) that transforms people based on how evil or good (to use the proper scientific terms*) they are. So evil people become zombies (and eventually mutate into something resembling the imps and hell knights of the game, although without the fireballs). And good people -- of which there appears to be exactly one -- turn into tough marines who can kick zombie ass.
So, needless to say, the first real problem with the film is the plot, which is pretty solidly by-the-numbers ("Look! Another marine just got killed!") for two-thirds of the movie, and only takes a briefly interesting turn when it becomes clear that The Rock is going to turn out to be "scientifically" evil and become a bad guy. The holes up to this point are enormous -- from the good Christian soldier who kills himself (in zombie form) to prevent him from hurting his friends (even though he's good, and should therefore become a superhero) to the cliched set of experiments undertaken by Dr. Carmack (get it, fans of the game?) using alien DNA modifying technology on human subjects without anyone outside his lab knowing.
The holes wouldn't matter as much if the movie actually offered anything new or unique. This is pretty much every Aliens rip-off rolled up into one, with nothing new added to the genre. The marines are as generic, the scientists as misguided, and the dialogue as corny as in every other film of this nature. Hell, if you'd removed the title and told me this was Xtro 4, I'd believe you.
If the plot holes are bad, the acting is worse. The Rock and Karl Urban both do passable jobs, but Rosamind Pike turns in one of the lousiest performances I've seen on the screen in ages. And once we get past the "not-so-big" three actors, we're stuck with the no-names playing the marines, almost all of whom have the same accent problems Pike does (if you're going to only hire British actors for minor parts, why not have them use British accents? Especially when the movie's set in the future, and there's no reason they can't be British?). The lone exception is Richard Brake, whose cowardly Portman character (a near-swipe of Bill Paxton's Hudson character from Aliens) keeps the movie moving along nicely.
As I mentioned earlier, Bartkowiak does a nice job with the look of the film, and actually makes the most notorious scene -- Karl Urban's first-person fight against the zombies -- work surprisingly well. Lots of folks complained about the cheesiness of including it, but given the fact that Doom is a largely plotless game, capitalizing on the fact that it served as the tipping point for first-person shooters makes sense; it's the one element of the movie that actually feels inspired by the game itself. The gore effects are also pretty good, although not nearly as prevalent as we might have expected from the games. Viewers who expect still-beating hearts on pedestals around every corner are going to be disappointed. That said, there's a respectable amount of blood and gore, without the pandering so prevalent in torturebation films like Hostel and Turistas.
One bonus moment of visual amusement: A wheelchair-bound character eventually mutates into the only pink bull-demon we see in the movie. The thing is, to let us know that this is the same character (named, appropriately enough, "Pinky"), the wheelchair has somehow remained grafted to the butt of the pink demon. So there's an entire "intense" fight scene that's completely undercut by the fact that the bad guy has a case of wheelchair ass.
There's a trend that gamers (especially ones with kids) are all too familiar with. A popular movie license will be made into a game. Instead of creating a game from scratch that matches the strengths of that license, an existing game sitting on the shelf is used, with images and dialogue from the movie grafted on. It usually results in a weak product that even the kids playing it can identify a a waste of time.** Doom feels like the reverse of that process. Take away about four lines of dialogue, one character's name, and one five-minute camera sequence, and you've got a script that could have been sitting on the shelf for twenty years. There's a little bit of fun to be had here, but not enough to justify paying to see this movie.
*Seriously.
**Yes, there are exceptions, like Shrek 2, but they're few and far between.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-01 06:21 pm (UTC)'wheelchair ass'
...
Your reviewing cock is thick and heavily veined.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-01 08:09 pm (UTC)Combine that with his succulent breast that's (once again!) dispensing good recommendations and you have a