RELEASE DATE: 2005
RATED: R
REVIEWED BY: The DarkSider
Indeed the gritty world of the granddaddy of all first person shooters has left many a memory in the heads of countless high schoolers/college students of the mid 90s. It would be years later that a major motion picture was made. Who knew how clone like to Aliens it would end up.
The film begins in your run of the mill genetic lab where of course everything is going ape sh*t. Before all of this we learn through spoken narration (oh christ, we know what that means for the movie) that a portal was found that led to Mars in some desert. The movie apparently takes place in the future which once again leads to the question why discovered ancient stuff is always more advanced than the technology in the movie.
Anyhow, people in lab coats run for their lives only to get knocked off violently by an unseen force. The chase sees a Dr. Carmack sending out a distress signal with a rather large creature knocking on the door.
Moving on, we get introduced to lead character Sarge sitting shirtless behind a computer. This would be wrestler turned actor Duane "The Rock" Johnson with a rather horrid painted on "Semper Fi" tattoo on his back. I have to admit, one has to stand in awe how well The Rock has done for himself in Hollywood. If this were Hulk Hogan, I'm sure the movie would have gone straight to video.
Anyhow, old Sarge is part of an elite team of space marines that come complete with their own highly generic names and personalities. Lets examine...
Goat - The religious freak who cuts himself when he sins and also prays constantly.
The Kid - Hes...well...a kid who has just joined up.
Portman - The pervert of the group.
Mac - A Chinese dude...not much more to his personality than that.
Duke - A black guy who acts like LL Cool J for the entire movie.
Destroyer - The big dumb ox of the group. Hence the name.
John Grimm - A hardened space marine with a haunting past which one can easily tell will become the focus later in the film.
Ok, all generic characters covered...check. Turns out our group of misfits get taken off leave so they may go to investigate the evil lab on Mars. They gear up, head to the portal and take off in the vomit inducing thrill ride to Mars. When they land there they meet up with a dude in a wheel chair named Pinky. Apparently �The Brain� was on vacation or something. Pinky gives the DL on whats going on.
We also get introduced to John�s sister Samantha who apparently was the smarty pants in the family. Her mission in the film is to retrieve date from the lab. She pretty much spends the film in the research lab trying to figure out whats going on.
Also, let me say that this is when the movie officially loses me when it comes to locations. What I mean by that is, I guess the evil lab is right near Pinky�s area yet is sealed off. However, for reasons I won�t cover now or later, it gets invaded by the meanies. All I know is that there are a lot of sealed doors on Mars which apparently have little sense of direction.
Moving on, after Mars gets evacuated by the workers (that must be one hell of a commute every day to work), Sarge and the boys go to work. They work hard at creeping through the evil lab corridors pointing their guns and saying �clear�. This �work� I swear consists of 75% of the film.
Anyhow, things pick up a notch many minutes into the film when they find Dr. Carmack who is in a panicked state. He has a neck wound which Samantha tries to tend to but he ends up dying none the less. Minutes later his corpse goes missing. Also, Goat gets knocked off by a creature called an Imp which attacks his neck as well.
So now comes the standard �one death at a time� guideline that many generic alien films have. Members of the team get hacked away slowly while we find out more and more about John Grimm�s past in a �who gives a sh*t� sub plot. Turns out mommy and daddy got off�d one day in a freak accident on Mars. That and Samantha grills him about joining the military rather than becoming a scientist. Blah blah blah blah blah...
Anyhow, at some point Portman radios out for help against Sarge�s orders. I have to admit that Portman, although greasy, was the voice of reason in the movie. I mean, why not call for backup against a bunch of evil lab created creatures. But of course Sarge is the standard �we�re the best of the best of the best� movie marine character and refuses.
Moving on, Samantha finds out the creatures in the evil lab used to be human but are mutating. That and they don�t stay dead too easily. Eventually John and Sarge force her to play the data she uploaded off the computer. Turns out Dr. Carmack and the gang were infecting people with a mutated gene from a Mars creature that existed long ago.
Supposedly the creature was human but a little cooler featuring one more chromosome. However it didn�t seem to work with evil people and caused a mutation. I don�t know, the science parts usually fail to keep my attention in movies. Just know something with genetic experiments caused this mess. That and the mutation only happens with mean people. Just go with it...I beg you...the plot begs you.
Well finally things get moving toward the end when the remaining team members (Sarge, Kid, John, Duke & Samantha) take the portal back to earth. They find out sh*t has gone haywire and there could be many infections of the mutation. Sarge insists they blow away everything that moves to contain it but the other team members insist that not everyone may be infected.
Eventually Sarge goes off the deep end blowing The Kid away which is considered in The Rock�s other career as a�heel turn�. Doesn�t matter because a few minutes after this everyone save John and Samantha get presumably chomped up. John gets wounded and Samantha injects him with the special genetic mixture from the lab. Why, well aside from trying out for �most retarded sister of the year� she insists it won�t mutate because John is not evil. Ok...think happy thoughts John.
John blacks out and wakes up to find himself ready for a new day only a much better person. This is when the film reminds you desperately that it is based on a first person shooter. The film goes into John�s first person view as he blows away a bunch of baddies. The scene was amusing but honestly made me yearn to shut off the movie and pick up a video game controller.
Well after a bunch of explosions and what not, John finds Samantha wounded. He also finds Sarge who apparently has been bitten on the neck. The two kick off a somewhat non-epic battle shooting at each other from all directions. This turns into a fist fight in which sees John shoving the mutated Sarge into the Mars portal with a grenade to follow. After the big boom, Samantha and John ride up to the surface back to earth and presumably towards a sequel.
Let me say that Doom is by far NOT one of the worse video game to movie adaptations. The acting, led by the gifted in and outside the ring Rock, wasn�t bad at all. Also Stan Winston�s studio creature effects, as always, were spot on. However, it is in the plot line and scripts where the film suffers most. The action was good but unfortunately too little and far in between.
So in another words this is no House Of The Dead but it�s a far cry from the first Mortal Kombat movie. It seems a lot of these video game plots all run together into a muddy mess and most end up looking like Aliens. Think back a few years to Resident Evil, pretty much the same concept right?
Director Andrzej Bartkowiak (a fellow Pole) did the best he could with what he had for a script. For what its worth, thats far better than what Uwe Boll would done with double the money and double the big name cast.
1.) Touch Somebody's Hand - One of the female doctors gets her hand sliced off. Sarge uses it later to retrieve the BFG (Big F*cking Gun)...no not the one in his pants.
2.) Can You Hear Me Now - A panicked Dr. Carmack rips his own ear off in front of the team. Indeed, plastic surgery the old fashioned way is just so much better.
3.) Earth Vs. Mars - In the big battle, people and aliens get shot, decapitated, thrown around, blow up, sliced by chainsaws, etc. Where is Kuato to spread the love...um...man?
1.) Sarge - A presumably good leader who turns into a genocidal maniac by the end of the film. Someone should have "smelled what he was cookin"...excuse the horrible wrestling reference by the way.
2.) Mutants - Genetically created monsters that use their tongue to attack their victims. Rumored to have also have appeared in many girl on girl movies.
