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Neil Marshall certainly isn't afraid of flaunting his sources of inspiration. Doomsday is an unashamed homage/rip-off of John Carpenter's Escape From New York combined with Mad Max, with a dash of 28 Days Later for good measure. In a film like Doomsday, however, lack of originality doesn't really matter: it is clearly a love letter to the 80s science fiction that Marshall grew up with, and they are definitely not bad places to steal ideas from. Doomsday, then, is made entirely for those people who also love genre fare like the aforementioned films. Its (many) flaws are easy to forgive because there is obvious passion behind the camera.
Admittedly, the acting could be better. Rhona Mitra, who tries so hard to channel Kurt Russell's man-of-few-words Snake Plissken (eyepatch and all), simply comes off as bland and slightly lifeless. A few familiar British faces populate supporting roles, but character development is on the backburner. The emphasis is on blood-soaked carnage, which Doomsday delivers in spades, screaming along at a breakneck speed. The film opens by telling us that in 2008 a deadly virus hit Scotland and led to the whole country being quarantined by a giant wall and left to rot. Skip to 2035 (the caption reads "2035: Now", another nod to Carpenter) and the virus is found in London, so a team is sent into the now-apocalyptic landscape of Scotland to try and retrieve a cure. The team is led by Eden Sinclair (Mitra), who as a young girl was evacuated from Scotland and separated from her mother, as depicted in the film's prologue. Marshall manages to make this set-up engrossing and exciting, disguising the fact that it's basically all an elaborate excuse to get to the real meat of the story. When in Scotland, the team come across some survivors, but, predictably, they're not exactly friendly. They also seem to be separated into two types: punks with tattoos and mohican haircuts, and those who have regressed to the middle ages, wearing suits of armour and riding horses.
The world that Marshall establishes behind the wall is an interesting, if not entirely plausible, one, that allows the director to create a wide spectrum of action scenes, from Gladiator-esque arena fights to Mad Max car chases. Marshall pulls them all off excellently, minus the odd regrettable lapse into overly rapid cutting. Indeed, the film is so intent to keep going at an express speed that it is allowed little time to breathe, which probably would have benefited it in the long run. Ultimately the film just becomes a travelogue through this unusual environment, with some repetition (the heroine is captured, forges an escape, is chased. Rinse and repeat). That it overcomes these obstacles is down entirely to Marshall's commitment - his ambition is commendable and what he achieves on a relatively small budget (though large for him) is very impressive.
The summary
Doomsday is an entertaining adventure that genre fans will lap up. Just don't expect great insight into the human condition.
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