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Plot:
In the action-packed new thriller from writer/director Neil Marshall ("The Descent"), authorities brutally quarantine a country as it succumbs to fear and chaos when a virus strikes. The literal walli...( read more 
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Doomsday Recent Reviews
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Recent Reviews
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MCT:October 5, 2008Great because of the sum of it's parts. And boy is this movie a Frankenstein! Tons of really cool scenes make for a fun watch
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MCT:September 8, 2008INTERESTED
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MCT:September 6, 2008Apocolyptic movie directed by Neil Marshall statting Bob Hoskins. Very violent and a mix of mad max, twenty eight weeks later and a strange but good violent film.
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MCT:August 30, 2008
"If you're hungry, have a piece of your friend."
I've always found post-apocalyptic scenarios a little boring. Sure, the point is to see how humanity survives in a world fraught with chaos, but all too often filmmakers' predictions of the future end up looking exactly the same. Doomsday doesn't bring anything particularly new to the table, but at least writer/director Neil Marshall has enough good sense to inject just the right amount of creativity and style into the formula, helping the film come across as entertaining if not good.
The foremost reason I enjoyed Doomsday as much as I did - besides being written and directed by a filmmaker I admire immensely and a hell of a fun to watch - is because, despite blatantly cribbing off about eight other films, it puts a creative spin on the whole "civilization-ending virus" plot. While most films (think 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead) simply chronicle the outbreak of the virus, Doomsday takes place twenty-five years after it's been contained.
It's called the "Reaper" virus this time around, but it's your typical human-turned-zombie deal. In April 2008, it breaks out in the U.K., but the British government is able to contain it in Scotland and completely quarantine the area, leaving the infected to die. Cut to 2032: a new outbreak occurs. The government sends a team headed by tough-as-nails security officer Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) into the Scotland dead zone to find the laboratory of a doctor called Kane (Malcolm McDowell), who had been working on a cure before all contact was cut off.
Once inside Scotland, though, Eden and her team quickly realize that it's not just full of corpses - an entire society of people who are immune to the virus has popped up, and apparently everybody's completely freaking nuts, from hordes of vicious cannibals led by the psychotic Sol (Craig Conway) to a medieval community of survivors, led by McDowell's character, not too comfortable with outsiders invading their turf. If there's a moral of the film, it's this: if you leave the people of Scotland without a government, within twenty-five years they will all turn into insane tattooed sadistic cannibals who gather in abandon concert venues to burn people alive. That's either preposterously prejudicial... or just hilarious.
Once Eden and her team is inside the quarantine, the film can be neatly broken up into three parts:
Part 1: Escape From New York. The good guys meet the crazy sadistic cannibals and try to avoid them in the ruins of a major city.
Part 2: Army of Darkness meets Gladiator. Somehow we're suddenly in a medieval castle on the Scotland countryside, and Eden is fighting an actual knight, with body armour and all, in an actual arena.
Part 3: The Road Warrior meets Mad Max. The film's best scene. A big car chase with the crazy tattooed cannibals jumping from car to car. No, it's not nearly as good as the car chase in The Road Warrior, but that's clearly what it's going for.
If this everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach sounds like fun to you, chances are you'll like the film. The editing gets way too confusing way too often, with a series of quick close-ups that frequently cause you to lose your bearings. Still, there's an enormous amount of fun to be had here, as long as you don't walk into it expecting a masterpiece.
While Marshall was responsible for 2005's The Descent, considered by many - including yours truly - the best horror film of the last decade, Doomsday harkens back more so to his début, Dog Soldiers. Despite the dour storyline, there are no traces of satire to be found here as was evident in 28 Weeks Later and Land of the Dead. Doomsday is as carefree as apocalyptic thrillers go, indulging in pure, unadulterated, blood-shedding joy.
It's not so much in the same heavy vein as George Romero's zombie flicks but rather along the same lines as John Carpenter's work from the '80s, namely Escape from New York. Marshall stretches the term "borrowing liberally" to its breaking point here, copying the latter film down to having the hero (or, in this case, heroine) sport an eyepatch. Action buffs will definitely be struck with a sense of deja vu, not to mention why Marshall didn't just remake New York instead of offering up a pale imitation of Carpenter's cult classic. The answer is simple: honouring the work of the greats, the films we grew up watching, drawing inspiration from it while sending something new to the world, is quite different from remaking them.
As I mentioned before, Doomsday leaves the genre's basic elements relatively intact. The survivors still look like they wandered off the set of Mad Max, the good guys are mostly made up of cannibal fodder, and the protagonist is a human Rolex that could probably swallow a live grenade and still keep on ticking. But worry not, for Marshall doesn't let himself get too bogged down in going through the motions. There are a few little touches here and there that bring a much needed brush of insanity to the production. Right off the bat, he's not afraid to let the blood and gore flow like the mighty Mississippi, as he announces near the beginning by blasting a cute bunny rabbit into ribbons. Then there's Conway's completely off-kilter performance as Sol, a psychopath who's so over-the-top, he strikes fear into your heart as much as he makes you giggle like an eight-year-old. He's definitely a much more vivid character than Mitra's Eden, who doesn't do anything more than Kate Beckinsale already did in the Underworld films. I'd say it's a tie in terms of looking hot and cool at the same time.
Hats off to masterful cinematographer Sam McCurdy, who worked on Marshall's last two films. The Doomsday "look" is perfect and swings between dark nights of rain and days of blown-out dreamscape. Talking of looks, keep your eye on Eden, because hers is bionic and she takes it out to use a nifty camera. You could argue that the virus that makes you explode with blood is not original, but hey, I'm not going to.
In my opinion, it's the lack of character development and some of the performances that hold the film back. Rhona Mitra's character needed a bit more dimension. I wanted to see a stronger emotional bond with her team. To me, the performance of the usually brilliant Bob Hoskins felt a bit forced. Story-wise, I'm not at all sure they killed the right people off, and I would have liked to see more conflict between the punks and the medieval gang from the castle. Maybe I'm just whining. This is a fine action film and, while I'm sure the '80s were cool and all, this is the '00s and Marshall managed to make a fine homage to those cult action films - much in the same line of what Tarantino and Rodriguez did last year - while also adding something new - namely a female lead.
As far as Armageddons go, Doomsday is a cut above snoozefests like Resident Evil: Extinction, as it bothers to bring at least a little energy to the party instead of sluggishly repeating the steps of other, better films of its kind. Seen by yourself in the middle of a multiplex, Doomsday won't seem like much, but when gathered with some fellow gorehounds, it proves to be a fairly entertaining, testosterone-filled ride. Everyone needs some of that once and a while.
"In the land of the infected, the immune man is king." -
MCT:August 26, 2008
Great gore effects! Really cool movie until the end hollywood action film car chase scene. I thoroughly enjoyed how they did the movie right at first: lots of splatter effects, unique story in a neo-80's apocalypse kinda way that even had medieval knights. I like how some of the bad guys who should have died didn't (because not every bad guy dies), and how some good guys who seemed expendable lived (while cool ones didn't). Totally impressed until the cop out piece of crap "fantastic 4/ghostrider/mummy 3" car crash ending. (for example, I like how a van hits a bike and blows up, but the good guy's sports car can drive through a bus and it hardly scratches it). Anyways. The end.
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MCT:December 4, 2008
Fun-filled ride going from post-apocalyptic future to medieval Scotland and back again for some Mad Max car battling.
Comments
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doulailposted 79 days ago -
did not like it much...but the chase sequence in the climax was really grt...that more than covered up for the movie...wich was average...
posted 125 days ago -
Neil Marshall, in his 3rd film (dog soldiers & the Decent being the others) goes down hill I'm afraid. seems like he wanted to make a film with all his favourite scenes & ideas from others & does not quite pull it off. The main two influences are Escape from New York (for the most part of the film) & the great car chase at the end of mad max 2 (so much as to name 1 character(John) Carpenter & (George) Miller & other references. on their own the action scenes (& gory deaths) & post apocalyptic Scotland & the action scenes & car chases are entertaining, but where it falls down hard is the script, almost as if a 13 year old wrote it,putting all his favourite bits of other films into one film & disregarded how to make sense of the plot & how to get from one scene to another.
Anyone like me who has Enjoyed Mr Marshall's films previously, will enjoy spotting the actors from his previous movies & the subtle name references (such as Sterling for the lad who played Spoon in Dog soldiers etc)
It's a film I really want to like, but due to the bad story used to wedge the good action scenes, It leaves you feeling not quite satisfied.posted 204 days ago -
This movie doesn't try to be more than what it is... A good old 80's style action movie ! You could say it's an hommage to movies like the Mad Max series and Escape from NY. It entertains and is fun !
posted 257 days ago -
I don't understand why people have a problem with doomsday. I thought it was good. Yeah, it was lacking in a few things story wise but the rest of it was good. The guy who said that we had already seen car chases and arena death battles is right, we have. But that is kind of the point. The people we see in doomsday have been left there to die. They know absolutely nothing of the outside world and were determined to get out once people came back in. The car chase was inevitable and the arena battle was their form of entertainment. So I really don't understand the problem here.
posted 259 days ago -
I caught a matinée, so I only had to pay $5.50 to see it. I wasn't expecting originality, I was expecting a good time...which I...kinda got?
posted 264 days ago -
This is basically a rip-off of Mad Max/Road Warrior with a hint of 28 Days Later and maybe Escape from New York. If you had any decency you would rent one of these films instead of paying to see a horrible Hollywood rip-off.
posted 265 days ago -
slt sava et les affaires sa bouge bien dit moi ta un msn le mien ce korefale@hotmail.com et toi ta un msn
posted 267 days ago -
this was interesting when it first came out in the 80's..although then it was called escape from new york...hollywood and their "original" ideas...give me a break
posted 269 days ago -
