The trailers for the new movie Doomsday are pretty badly put together, and one gets the sense that once-inspired director Neil Marshall, who gave us the amazing horror film The Descent, might have made a serious misstep. But the movie isn't really that bad...it's worse.
Much, much worse.
With the opening of Doomsday, the ballots have officially begun to tumble in as to which film will top my year-end list for the worst picture of 2008. I don't care what comes out for the rest of the year, Doomsday will be the front-runner.
I don't know what happened with this film, exactly, where in the process of its inception things went wrong. Did Rogue Pictures(responsible for the terrific Shaun of the Dead and the hysterically funny Hot Fuzz) become too involved some-where along the line and overly influence the movie's insipid
storyline? Did director Neil Marshall(who also wrote the script) not have anyone proofread it and decided a first draft of an outline was enough to go by? Is it possible that since com-pleting The Descent, Marshall fell into habitual drug use and now does coke lines like most folks down bottles of spring water? This last part might sound ridiculous, but trust me--you'll be considering it as well, if you dare to watch Doomsday; a film which suffers from a serious case of the cinematic equivalent of penis envy, and tries to be several different films at once. It's a little bit Dawn of the Dead, it's a little bit Escape From New York, it's a little bit Underworld. There's some delusions of grandeur as it emulates Lord of the Rings, Pulp Fiction, Aliens, Mad Max(and Beyond Thun-derdome to boot), as well as Robin Hood, just for good mea-sure.
Unfortunately, Doomsday combines the worst of each of the above films.
I had offered to give some faith to the film, being that it's directed by Neil Marshall, since The Descent was so damn good. Doomsday actually starts out with promise, our story beginning only two months from now, with an opening narra-tion by Malcolm McDowell(Heroes, Cut Off) which informs us a deadly disease called the Reaper Virus spread throughout much of Glasgow and England, killing hundreds within days before beginning its spread among the general populace. The people in charge of London's government issue quaran-tines designed to give the people false hope, since there is no cure...and which also allows time for a massive steel wall to be built around the city itself to keep the infected out. A young girl and her mother are among the hundreds trying to get through the barricades leading to the wall's closing doors, when a stray bullet from a soldier takes out the child's right eye. Having pity on her, a group of soldiers take her aboard their fleeing helicopter, but leave the mother behind because the bird's already too heavy.
Cut to the year 2035, and most of civilization has turned its back on every town outside of the city of London, since the virus allegedly killed those poor folk off. The little girl has grown up to be badass Department of Defense Service(DDS) cop Eden Sinclair, played by Kate Beckinsale's doppleganger Rhona Mitra. Mitra--who had the unfortunate happenstance to star in Skinwalkers, one of my top 5 picks for 2007's worst list--is so similar in appearance and the roles she chooses to Kate Beckinsale, the two are interchangeable in the same manner in which Traci Lords was interchangeable for Rebecca De Mornay back in the '80's. If one's not available, just get the other. As a matter of fact, blink twice the first time you see Mitra standing in the rain in this film, and you'll swear you're watching Underworld instead.
How badass is Sinclair? She's so badass that she's got a cybernetic eye now to replace the one she lost, and which she can roll perfectly around a corner to view the positions of bad guys she needs to shoot, because the eye can watch and record images remotely when not in her head. I forgot to mention that Doomsday is also a little bit Babylon 5, since J. Michael Straczynski thought of something very similar to this--only cooler--more than a decade ago. JMS, if you happen to read this, I would advise the filing of legal papers for a suit. Sinclair is also so badass that she can just calmly pop her eye back into her head without missing a beat--or apparently cleaning it either--afterward, which creeps out her immediate superior, Bill Nelson, played by respected thesp Bob Hoskins(Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Hollywoodland).
Bill has received a briefing from Michael Canaris(David O'Hara), a personal aide to Prime Minister John Hatcher (Alexander Siddig). It seems there are actually survivors in the No Man's Land outside the wall, whereas it was assumed the population had died out. This news comes just in time, as the Reaper Virus has suddenly reemerged within London it-self, and survivors outside mean there might be a cure. It's also suspected that if a cure has been found, it was probably discovered by Dr. Kane(Malcolm McDowell), who was the greatest mind Glasgow had to offer. With her team of Com-pletely Expendable Stock Soldiers in tow--including former Descent co-star Nora-Jane Noone, who deserves better--Sinclair sets out for Glasgow and Kane's supposedly fortress-like medical lab. The group travels in two separate APCs, which aside from their camouflage job, are reminiscent of Aliens. With little difficulty, even when finding a way(off-screen) to navigate through a herd of cows(??!), the soldiers make their way into the city. At this point, the story is fairly solid, the acting is decent(but not first rate by any stretch), and the audience's attention is firmly held.
Then, as the group enters the lab(the barricades didn't hold as well as was thought), they and the movie turn a corner and suddenly end up in RidiculousLand!
Ah, RidiculousLand...which, much like the Magic Kingdom itself, makes no sense whatsoever and by all rights, should not exist.
Although heavily armed with both flexible battle armor and rapid-fire guns, Sinclair and her crew are surprised, overrun and ultimately defeated by a savage group of punk-rockers! Yes, you read that right...it's Mad Max time, because appar-ently, no matter what type of alternate post-apocalyptic future occurs--be it zombies or a deadly virus--punk rock truly will never die! These punks(henceforth known as The Sons and Daughters of Billy Idol) manage to kill all but two of Sinclair's men, who run away in cowardly lion fashion. They capture Sinclair and one of her men, and while Sinclair stews in a cell, they actually cook and eat the poor guy(then again, he might be lucky, as he manages to exit the film early). There is a Beyond The Bizarro World moment when Sol(Craig Conway), the leader of these people, prances about spanking the butts of two chicks on stage while a group of fat punk guys do a "Can-Can" dance in the background. Honestly, it's like walk- ing in to one of director Marshall's masturbatory nightmares, and the door slams shut and locks before you can escape.
Sinclair meanwhile manages to kill Sol's punker girlfriend (stuntwoman-turned-actress Lee-Anne Liebenberg), rescue a hostage named Cally(Descent alum MyAnna Buring) and escape with absolutely no resistance! Seriously--she kills one other guy, and the two of them slip out what appears to be the front door, in broad daylight! I checked my pockets and realized I brought no alcohol flask with me, so there was neither an excuse for what I was witnessing on screen, nor a means of escape from it.
It only gets worse once Sinclair manages to conveniently hook up with her remaining two men once again, managing to easily choose which streets to hook up at in a city they've never been to before, and were too young to remember any-way, since they were all kids when the virus initially broke out! There's not one scene of them being given a map of Glasgow by their superiors, so that's a copout I won't allow for. The quartet fights their way to the train at Hogwarts Station(not really, but it seriously looked like it...and how is all this technology--cars, trains, buses--working after nearly thirty years? Where's the gas coming from? How come nothing's rusted out? Where's the electricity coming from?) and take it to the...forest. WTF? It is there that they are captured(again) by knights! Again, you did not read that wrong. Former Dr. Kane(McDowell) who happens to be the father of both Cally and her brother Sol(forgot to mention the Star Wars connec-tion in this film) has turned his back on science to become a feudal lord in a castle, believing that abandoning the search for a cure has allowed he and his believers to live a "pure" life. Yes. Of course, that's it.
Maybe Uwe Boll has somehow become a folk hero in Europe, in much the same way Americans once believed the legend of Johnny Appleseed. Except Boll spreads cancerous movies throughout the land, and for whatever reason, Neil Marshall has decided to emulate him. Whatever the reason, I can't talk about this anymore. Just stay away from the fu**ing thing, okay? It sucks. Horribly.
Official Archives of LanceReviews...
Doomsday comes to theaters!
(Movie critic vows to poke own eyes out after viewing!)
Something else has an expiration date...'cause there's a hell of a stench rising out of theaters across America at this moment!
Rhona Mitra(right) stars as Kate Beckinsale playing the charac-ter of tough-as-nails heroine Eden Sinclair.
"And then, once I have come to power, the Sons and Daughters of Billy Idol will rule the world!"
"Keep them locked up...no one must know that I was in this 'film'!"
Yes, this is an actual scene from the movie. You are not hallucinating, even if you just finished smoking crack.
"Get out of the theater! It's too late for us, we're already in the movie! But you can still escape! Ruuuuuunnnn--!!"
"I know, Rhona, I know...I used to be a serious actor, too...!"
