Film #161 - Doom (2005)
Over twelve years ago, I visited my brother who was then living in Pennsylvania. He was going to school, so, naturally, he had a computer. After spending several days getting to know the machine, I came away with two bits of knowledge. First, I didn’t think I’d ever wrap my head around this thing called “Windows”. (My most recent computers at that point were my Atari 800XL and Apple ][c.) Second, I loved Doom.
This began my long love of the Doom series. I’ve bought it (or its sequels) for the PC, Mac (though I don’t have one), Saturn, PlayStation, Jaguar, Game Boy Advance, XBOX, even the dreaded 32X. Basically, if they port Doom to a system, I’ll buy it. So it was not without a personal interest that I went to see 2005’s Doom, the film version of the series. *
This is a really divided review for me. On the one hand, they got the mood and look of a lot of the film pretty darn good. I thought the story was better than most of these Alien knockoffs and the characters better defined, as well. On the other hand, they messed up the one thing that most defined Doom: Hell.
You see, much of the original Doom took place in Hell. Doom II was subtitled “Hell on Earth” as the bowels of Hell were opened up and demons ran rampant across the planet. And it was really Hell. They kind of made a point of it whenever they got the chance. It was *the* defining visual reference of the series. Doom, on the other hand, has no hint of a true blue Hell in it. Oh, they mention Hell and that it’s “like Hell”, but that’s not really the same thing. They replace the undead soldiers and demons with, you guessed it, zombies and mutants. It’s a major letdown and one that does nothing to anhance the story. The plot could have been easily adjusted to include Hell and even keep most of the monster designs intact, but I guess they just didn’t want any potential trouble from using a real Hell and they chickened out. Everything else that I like about the film fails to make up for this mistake. It’s what keeps it from being the true-to-its-roots over-the-top action film I hoped it would be.
So, in this version of the story, a mysterious transporter (called The Ark) was discovered that led to the surface of Mars. There, an ancient, but dead, civilization was found. After years of research, both archaelogical and biochemical, a disruption forces the company overseeing Mars operations to call in the Marines, including Sarge (The Rock) and our hero, John Grimm (Karl Urban). Causing difficulty for the squad is the presence of non-military personnel, including John’s sister Samantha (Rosamund Pike). Together, the group must piece together the mystery of Mars’ dead civilization and survive whatever is running rampage through the installation.
Pretty basic sci-fi/horror stuff, but well done. I particularly liked the John/Samantha relationship, showing two siblings trying to overcome their personal conflicts, in place of the traditional love story that’s usually somewhere at the heart of these things. It reminded me of the old switcheroo that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade pulled with a similarly strained father/son relationship. (Not that it was as good, just that it was somewhat different than the usual.)
And I really liked the cast. The Rock is no great actor, but he knows what he can do and what he can’t. The few times I’ve seen him act, he’s never really stretched too far. Here, he gets to twist his typical heroic image a bit and it helps the character immensely that he’s so naturally likable no matter how harsh he’s being.
Karl Urban is not particularly memorable in his role, but at least he never fails to sell the material completely. It’s far too easy to ruin this kind of film by playing up the less believable aspects instead of helping get the over to the audience. Urban is never less than 100% commmited, even in the fun (but admittedly odd) “first person shooter” sequence.
But I must admit, I overlook a lot of the faults in this film because of Rosamund Pike. She was one of the few bright spots in the otherwise fairly dreadul James Bond film Die Another Day and the same can be said here. Her dazzling screen presence and (like Urban) ability to deliver the craziest of dialogue with absolute simcerity help ground the film.
And, despite the major downer of a lack of Hell, I must admit that the film gets a lot of the *other* aspects of the game series fairly right. The general look of the sets fit the non-Hell levels of the game just about perfectly. And there’s lots of small references to the games, such as the BFG (Big F…. Gun) and that FPS scene I mentioned earlier.
If they had only had the guts to portray the ultimate source of the problem as Hell, I think Doom would have been one of the more accurate video game movies. As it stands, it’s a better than average sci-fi/horror film (I’ll take it over the last two “Alien” films), but a missed opportunity where Doom is concerned.
* Of course, I saw it opening night. It just so happened that it opened on my birthday. The synergy was too much to let pass.