The Rockuary: DOOM

Great game... shitty movie

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm very critical about my video game and comic book movies.  While in the last seven to eight years, comic book movies have really improved in their quality.  So why is it that video game movies have a tendency to suck so much?  Obviously, these film makers should have learned by now that in order to make a video game movie good, you have to stick to its original premise.  You have to know your source material.  You have to present it in a way that's familiar to the fans, but also brings something new to the table.  You have to know what's going on.  You have to make the fans happy, while not undermining their intelligence.  And this piece of oily hippo shit does none of these things.

So what do I like about this movie?  Well, there actually is something I like about this movie.  The fact that Dwayne Johnson turns out to be the bad guy in this movie.  It's pretty contrived, and it doesn't really feel natural, and it feels more like his role from "The Mummy Returns," being tacked on, and somewhat unnecessary, but I rather like that they could allow Dwayne to be a bad guy.

And that's pretty much all I like about this movie.  There are just so many things wrong about this movie, that's shitty.  I'm not even sure where to begin.  ...well, actually... I do know where to begin.  It's original premise.  The DOOM computer game was about a Hell invasion on Phobos, one of the moons of Mars.  It is the year 2046, and we've apparently colonized the moon of Mars.  There's not much of a backstory that's needed past that.  Earth sends some of their toughest marines to deal with the situation, you just happen to be one of the last surviving Marines left.  Simple as that.  In its movie counterpart, there's no mention of Hell.

A truly bold movie adaptation of the first-person-shooter videogame 'Doom' would simply be an hour and a half of ... well ... first-person shooting. The camera would take the point of view of an anonymous soldier as he blasts his way through various mutants, zombies, and other unfriendly creatures in the catacombs of Mars.

There is actually an extended sequence like that in the movie, tipping its hat to its popular source. It's pretty clever and has a kind of trigger-finger wit. Otherwise, Doom the movie is likely to thrill only those who have been yearning for a Doom movie. Most others will have seen it all before, in superior action-horror films (Aliens, Predator) and not-so-superior ones (Resident Evil).

Scientists on Mars have been diddling around with a 24th chromosome that makes humans super strong and almost indestructible. The process, though, also functions as a sort of moral litmus test: If you're predisposed to violence or psychosis, it'll make you a monster. So the result is a bunch of dead scientists, and a crew of Hollywood-issue Marines are shipped off to Mars to investigate. Character subtlety is out of the question: the only Marine with a full name is John Grimm (Karl Urban), which suits his general mood. The other guys go by names like Goat, Duke, Destroyer, and Sarge (The Rock).

Helmed by Andrzej Bartkowiak, a decent cinematographer (Thirteen Days, The Devil's Advocate) turned schlock director (Cradle 2 the Grave, Romeo Must Die), the movie streaks by in unscannable short bursts of gunfire. Doom is plenty bloody and violent, though the hyperactive editors (four are credited) make sure you don't see much of the carnage, in effect doing the MPAA's censorious work for it. The video game was (notoriously) much more brutal; the movie is suggestively brutal, offering quick glimpses of torn flesh, spattered blood. In one memorable bit, a tube of a character's watery brain matter is applied to a monster's severed tongue to see if there's a reaction. That sentence has possibly never been typed before, and I suppose I have Doom to thank for it.

The Rock continues to pursue his apparent dream of being a stoic and colorless action hero, without a trace of the humor he's shown in interviews, in supporting roles, or even in his old wrestling persona. His one tender moment is played opposite an enormous gun, taking trash-movie autoeroticism about as far as it can go. (Regardless, we see it fired only twice.) Usually a director would try to cast eccentrics around a rock like The Rock, but here we only get Karl Urban, here used for his imposing physique and little else. Urban emerges as the film's closest thing to a hero, but he's still not very close, playing a hard-boiled soldier who goes on the mission mainly to rescue his scientist sister (Rosamund Pike, who couldn't act worth a damn in Die Another Day and still can't). Only Richard Brake, as the sleazy and duplicitous grunt Portman, gives a performance of any interest, and even that's on the level of caricature.

And what exactly did I expect from a movie based on a shoot-'em-up video game? Well, there's no rule that video game movies have to be idiotic. And there's no rule that action-horror flicks need be dumb: James Cameron's Aliens remains the gold standard in a debased sub-genre. Doom, however, proceeds as though those were inviolable rules. And except for a moment involving a monkey in an air shaft the script is as humorless as The Rock's character.

Some time ago there was a famous Internet clip of the online game 'World of Warcraft,' in which a player loudly proclaiming himself "Leeroy Jenkins" ran heedlessly into a hazardous level and (hilariously) got everyone else killed. 'Doom' could've used a Leeroy Jenkins.

On a scale of one to Super Mega Awesome, this movie gets a "Stay the fuck away from it, and it can't hurt you."  If I knew then, what I know now... I would have taken this advice.