Doom

February 16, 2006

Rated: R Runtime: 100 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Doom is yet another attempt to cash in on the popularity of a video game by turning it into a movie. For the most part, all previous attempts have tanked or had limited success at best. So can one of the most popular video games of all time and The Rock team up for a mega-hit?

Doom If you’ve played a computer based video game in the last decade or so, you’ve likely heard of Doom. It is the grand-daddy of all first person shooters, and really broke new ground as it created what has become the most popular video game genre. The movie makers took some liberties with the storyline of the game to come up with a story for the movie.

In the movie version, the gateway to hell is actually a gateway to a research outpost on another planet where scientists have accidently unlocked something quite hell-ish. A group of space marines, led by The Rock as “Sarge” are sent thru to make sure the quarantine is secured, rescue scientists and generally whip some ass.

The visuals are great. The monsters from the game really come to life nicely here. There’s also some cool sequences from a first person point of view that pay homage to the game. They wisely didn’t get too carried away with that. And there’s a lot of action and serious gore. We wanted to like the movie a lot, but something was missing.

All of the ingredients for a great movie are in Doom, so why did it feel like it was over 2 hours long when in reality it was only an hour and forty minutes? Action characters need to be “cool”, and when you go hire the most electrifying man in sports entertainment to star in your movie, it should be easy to have a cool character. The Rock did a good job, but this was written and played as a serious action role. Where are the wise cracks? Or at least the classic action film one liners? I can pull dozens of quotes from any movie I truly love. I can’t pull a single one from Doom, there was nothing memorable.

We give Doom 2 stars, but it’s not a total waste of time, especially if you’re a fan of The Rock or of the video game. The first person sequence alone is worth a DVD rental. And the visuals and sound should make for a really killer DVD in general. Ask Santa for a copy, I’m sure it’ll be out in time for Christmas.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 3 Stars, Action, Ben Daniels, DVD, Dwayne, Horror, Karl Urban, R, Razaaq Adoti, Rosamund Pike, SciFi