By Alan Cho
Forget the paper-thin story, generic direction and a cast with the collective acting prowess of Tara Reid’s left boob–for 10 minutes Doom is glorious. Rumours and the trailer only hint at the sublimity of the exact moment you paid to see when the first person perspective becomes the most transcendent moment in cinema today. Not since Schwarzenegger notified Benedict he would no longer be the last to die in Commando has Hollywood produced a more perfect B-movie action sequence. This one scene encapsulates everything Doom should be, boldly embracing the ridiculousness inherent in a movie based on a video game. In first-person mode, zombies thrash toward the camera and decaying heads pop up reminiscent of crappy carnival rides of old. Unfortunately, it’s only 10 minutes in an otherwise unremarkable 104 minutes of wondering why you’re sitting in a theatre watching a movie based on the video game Doom.
Speaking of unremarkable, the film begins by introducing us to the Rock and his Rapid Response Tactical Squad, a generic band of dudes with guns. In a stunning twist, the movie forgoes action movie convention and includes three minorities on the squad. Of course, it doesn’t last too long as they all die by the time the credits roll. Still, they’re around when the squad gets called to a research facility on Mars, where one of the squad members’ sister lives, to deal with a level five breach. You’d think it’d be guns the size of livestock and the Rock raising an eyebrow in a shower of the damned entrails from then on out. Instead most of the movie is devoted to following the characters as they wander from one corridor to another, interrupted by the occasional demon jumping out to be slaughtered.
While this is happening, the sister scientist reveals Mars was once home to a race of super-humans with an extra chromosome. Yes, an advanced race with Downs Syndrome, the demonic superpowers are side effect to help them kick ass at the Special Olympics. With the pseudo-science dispensed with, the movie reaches its climax allowing only one of the two characters left on the planet to escape. It’s I Am Sam meets Queer as Folk but the two end up drinking way too much and get into bed with Stargate to produce dreadfully dull progeny.
Forgoing the bad puns and zingers action movies were renowned for, screenwriters Dave Callaham and Wesley Strick settle for obscenities grunted at varying volumes. The Rock grunts “OH SHIT” to signal consternation regarding a dire situation and reserves the “oh shit” for fucking somebody up, making Doom as quotable as Bono after a stroke.
All the ingredients were in place for this to be a great piece of escapism: big fucking guns, buxom blonde biologists and Stan Winston designed demons. Doom should be a no-brainer, 104 minutes of gore, brief nudity and enough wanton violence to keep Charlton Heston hard for weeks. Doom promised many things: it promised to usher in a new golden age for drinking games, it promised to be so awesomely awful Jean-Claude Van Damme would be forced out of retirement, it promised to be three Tony Jaas head butting six Chow Yun Fats. For 10 minutes it is. The rest of the time, we’re left with a movie based on a video game.