Posted: 10/22/2005

Doom

(2005)

by Clint Fletcher

I must first start off by re-announcing my undying allegiance to The Rock. The dude kicks ass and I will probably see every movie he makes despite what critics say or which turn his career takes. With that said, it kills me to inform everyone that Doom brings a new meaning to the word ‘blow.’

Absolutely nothing pisses me off more than a bad action movie that had a simple plot handed to itself from some other form of material, whether it be a video game or a better movie from the past (this is 2005 after all). All Doom had to be was a fun popcorn flick about Marines blowing the shit out of aliens. But noooooo. Somewhere along the line some douche bag producer said ‘hey, let’s try and make this movie about something more’ and that douche bag producer should be shot in the fucking head. Why can’t it just be like the video game?

The game was popular for a reason and if you change everything about it that made it popular, all you’re left with is House of the Dead or worse- Super Mario Brothers. Now I don’t know much about the Doom games because I had sex in high school, but I have played them on brief occasions. This big screen adaptation spends far too much time on the contrived plot and ‘scientific reasoning’ behind the transformation of these creatures that they forget one simple thing- we don’t care. No one cares about how they were created. No one cares how they transformed or how they mutated. No one cares about their genetic DNA strands or any other B-movie scientific jargon. I care about two things and two things alone- The Rock and his Big Fucking Gun.

So, naturally we open with a very cool scene involving a lady getting attacked and her arm sliced off because hey, there has to be something cool to trick us into thinking this movie is watchable. After a bloody accident involving a team of geeky scientists inside a research facility on the planet Mars (keep laughter on hold until the end), The Rock and his team of bad actors are sent to search and destroy the mysterious creatures that attacked them. Their mission- not to allow the creatures to reach the portal back to Earth and to stop them by any means necessary- even if it involves shitty dialogue. So for the next HOUR the marines search the facility listening to spooky sounds but never really finding anything worth shooting at.

That’s right, not a single weapon is fired in the flick for almost a solid hour! Then I wish I could say the last half hour kicks into high gear but instead what could’ve been a badass movie turns into a convoluted mess. The ‘scientist talk’ gets exhausting, the soldiers are killed off in uncreative ways and the movie switches to the ‘first person shooter’ angle for ten minutes without interruption. Now I’m sure that idea sounded cool in development but some dumbass should’ve voiced their opinion of opposition in the form of ‘um… yeah that was cool for the game but that would be gay for the movie.’ And to make matters worse, the dialogue switches from ‘okay’ to ‘incredibly cheesy’ at a rapid pace and The Rock’s character is completely ruined by an unnecessary plot twist.

Again, I love the dude’s work but all he did here was do his ‘intense stare’ that felt as fake as one of his wrestling matches. No one here really impressed me acting-wise, but that’s to be expected. So of course I don’t care about anyone but The Rock and then they go ruin that character too! Screenwriting 101 folks, never ruin the hero!

To sum everything up, Doom is a long and exhausting bore. It has no entertainment value for an action flick and no real characters to become attached to. If you want to see soldiers blow up aliens then go rent Aliens or The Alamo. Leave Doom to suffer its own fate in the 99 cent bin at Walmart.

Clint Fletcher is a film critic in Chicago.

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