Lets just cut to the chase straight off, okay? If you play the video game
Doom thats the one that popularlized this whole "first-person shooter" thing way back in the mid Nineties then chances are youre going to want to see this film. Its a generally accurate representation of the gaming scenario, and a chief component of the films final reel is an actual cinematic doppelganger of home play: The audience views the onscreen action via the first-person viewpoint for four uninterrupted minutes as Marine badass Reaper (Urban) blows all manner of creepy zombies and hybrid slug-lamprey beasties to hell. So I guess thats cool if youre into that. If you dont play the video game
Doom, then likely as not your minds going to snap like an ancient rubber band.
Doom is based on a wildly popular video game not quite as popular as
Halo, mind you and its plot reflects that. Briefly, a portal to Mars is discovered in the Nevada desert and, before you know it, American scientists are up there being devoured by God knows what (in the original video game it was demons from hell; here, its bio-engineered monster humanoids). What to do? Send in the Marines! Enter the Rock as shiny-toothed Sarge, followed by Carl Urbans Reaper, followed by the lascivious, thoroughly un-PC Goat (Daniels), and so forth and so on. Luckily, theres no backstory of any sort to get in the way of the films hellbent charge forward to slaughter, which, come to think of it, is just like the source material. Admittedly, its fun to see the Rock going all gushy-eyed over a piece of weapons hardware (the formidable BFG; you can probably figure out the acronym on your own), and
Doom also scores highly with its nonstop cavalcade of creepy critters (hellspawn or not), including one downright vile imp that looks like an albino manatee crossed with an In-Sink-Erator. (Finally, I know what my dogs going to dress up as on Halloween night.) Theres no character development to speak of because there are no real characters, just the living and the dead and the soon-to-be-dead (or undead), and in the end
Doom is so niche-marketed to gamers that it might as well not be considered a film at all: Its a marketing tie-in, albeit one with some exceptional production values. Director Bartkowiaks pulled DP duties on everything from
Prizzis Honor to
Speed, and
Doom looks good, sort of like James Camerons
Aliens but with even more claustrophobia. But who am I kidding? Go for the gore (theres lots of it), but stay for the immortal line: "Now let's go find the body this arm belongs to."



