Doom – Unrated Extended
Edition (Widescreen)
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C- Film: D
In the most embarrassing cycle since Hollywood tried to do
“virtual reality” films, video games are becoming feature films and it is not
working out anywhere as well as those films and even TV shows becoming
games. The videogame Doom is one
of the most popular and exciting on the market; the kind even non-gamers have
likely seen or played over the years.
With that in mind, you would think any studio who took it on would go
out of their way to make a smart, fun film that is as exciting and enjoyable as
that game. Instead, it gets treated
like junk and Andrzej Bartkowiak’s film Doom is an absolute catastrophe.
At the very beginning, the insults to the intelligence
begin as some innocent scientists in a spacey corridor setting are begin hunted
by a deadly, danger, vicious, evil, killer creature that later turns out to be
a very, very, very bad digital effect.
Even worse, the following scene is supposed to be the response, and that
brings us tired wrestler The Rock as a the poorest excuse for a marine in
cinema history dubbed “Sarge” (Yawn!!!
No wonder we’re having trouble fighting terrorists!!!) getting
instructions in one of the most intelligence-insulting scenes in years. It is sickening to offensive the
trivialization of the military, as well as its selling as if it were a
game. The politics of this, along with
other racial and gender issues are too much for this review, but the film has
major issues in all fronts. The use of
the term “extreme prejudice” as a passive term of extermination is particularly
offensive, especially in a post 9/11 world.
But that’s not all!
The film wants to be a “bug hunt” film like James Cameron’s Aliens
(1986) or Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers (1997, both reviewed
elsewhere on this site) and cannot begin to even come close. It is not even a good Horror film, or a good
“Boo!!! Movie” as Pauline Kael once dubbed Ridley Scott’s Alien. Bartkowiak was once a great cinematographer
(Prince Of The City, The Verdict, Terms Of Endearment, Falling
Down) who did decent commercial fare (Speed, Species, Lethal
Weapon 4) so it is not like he does not know good film work. As a director, he has been a disaster and
this is easily his worst film yet, which says something. The rest of the cast comes from previous
genre film and TV projects, but this is another one of those awful productions
where people yell their lines at each other and talk at each other in a way
that is embarrassing. I guess they are
afraid the audience will fall asleep, while the creators take this approach to
telegraph to the assumed young audience “Hey, this is a tough action film!!!”
Then there is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the wrestling
sensation who has been the total opposite in feature film. In Hollywood’s desperation to find a new
action star that they can accept as corporate-safe, but audiences can smell
what The Rock has been cooking and are staying away in droves. The more he shows up in prefabricated garbage,
the more he becomes a symbol for bad cinema, a sort of “Vanilla Ice” of the
action genre. Each succeeding bomb
compounds the problem. He is not even
interesting enough to be Jon Bon Jovi to Schwarzenegger, Vin Diesel and Bruce
Willis. Like Freddie Prinze, Jr. and
now Paul Walker, it is the epitome of why Hollywood is losing the young male
audience, maybe permanently on some levels.
It is about being so condescending to who they want quick money from and
could really care less about the audience, unlike the 1980s when the films had
stars the customer wanted with a good script and fun production. Now it is just product. As for Johnson, the same facial smirk grew
tired many years ago. Maybe Gary
Coleman should be in action pictures?
The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is actually
shot by Tony Pierce Roberts, B.S.C, who shot the Merchant-Ivory classic The
Remains Of The Day and boy oh boy is this the opposite end. This was shot in Super 35 and digitally
decolorized into the usual cliché that even a great cameraman like Roberts
cannot survive. It is ugly, tired,
lame, boring, dull, stupid and another reason people are staying home. The digital creature effects are a new low,
looking older than the first version of the original videogame. The original game is very violent and this
film is clueless on how to make that aspect work on screen. This unrated version is very bogus. Wow, it is that bad!
The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is punchy, but Universal oddly
did not include a DTS track. Maybe the
image could not match the sound. Maybe
they did not think it was worth it. It
would not have saved the film anyhow.
Extras include an X-Box playable piece likely far more entertaining than
the film and six featurettes that try to legitimize this mess. Play the videogame, don’t see the movie!!!
- Nicholas Sheffo
