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    Doom: The Movie: The Review


    Cyb

    Does it feel weird to anyone else that the Doom movie is here? The rumors started way back when the original Doom was released, and they seemed to surface fairly regularly after that. Over time it was pretty much accepted that there would never be a Doom movie and all those rumors were horrible, horrible lies.

    Of course then id went and released Doom 3 to somewhat lackluster fanfare. However it made them a lot of money, so naturally that, coupled with the development hype, would renew interest in a movie. Like Doom 3 or hate it, you can pretty much thank it for this movie. Or you can curse it for this movie I guess, but that's up to you.

    I know some of you have an attachment to Doom, perhaps even an unhealthy one, and the thought of changing something about it makes you want to complain about it on the internet a whole bunch, and I'm sure you will. But let's face facts, Doom was never much for plot. It pretty much defined the first person shooter genre, but as far as a story went, you got a couple generic paragraphs in the manual and that was pretty much it. Even in Doom 3, which fleshed out the story, none of that plot crap mattered. In the end Doom is about a lone marine killing a whole lot of shit.

    So, I give the movie the benefit of the doubt and I review it not as a connoisseur of cinema (which I'm not anyway), but as a gamer who likes games where he can shoot things and watch them writhe in simulated agony. If you're looking for a movie with an in-depth and complex plot, stimulating characters and interesting dialog, then you probably shouldn't bother. It's not that type of movie.

    Doom doesn't mess around with things like character development. There are a bunch of marines, most of whose names I don't even remember. On top of that they're all very generic. You have the smart-mouthed black guy, the tough and quiet black guy, the nervous rookie, the religious guy, the creepy old guy, the Asian (yes, that is his defining characteristic), the hero and the tough-as-nails leader. On the UAC side you have an all-business scientist woman and a snarky cripple nicknamed Pinky for no apparent reason.

    It's not like they don't make attempts at character development, it's just that they fail miserably at it. John "Reaper" Grimm (Karl Urban) and his sister Samantha "I'd hit it" Grimm (Rosamund Pike) witnessed the death of their parents on Mars when they were younger. I know that sounds like a huge spoiler, but it's not important to the plot in the least, and you simply won't give a crap when it comes up. This occurs to a lesser extent with some other characters (nothing about their past, just based on their current behavior), though oddly enough not with the Rock, who is a pretty major character.

    And no, the demons aren't from Hell. They look like demons, smell like demons, sound like demons and act like demons, but they're not from Hell. I guess that doesn't matter, except that Hell would have made the movie a lot more interesting (assuming they did it right). Instead, the plot involves archeology and genetics experiments. The monster count is also pretty small with only three types of enemy; imp, hell knight and pinky demon (four if you count zombie). However it does take place on Mars, if that's any consolation. It may as well take place in New Jersey though, since the whole thing is indoors except for a brief shot of the Martian terrain.

    The acting is flat most of the time. The lines are short and might actually be kind of snappy if not for the bad delivery. At times it was hard to tell if they were trying to be campy or the director just didn't care enough to get a decent performance out of his actors all the time. I'd expect that from the Rock since he wasn't arching one eyebrow and talking about what he was cooking, but Karl Urban is certainly capable of a better performance.

    The other characters are so generic that their lines don't even matter. Religious guy is quiet, the rookie is nervous, creepy guy says some creepy stuff, and the smart-mouthed black guy says "aw hell naw". Okay, he only says "aw hell", but I bet they wanted to make him say "aw hell naw".

    The movie tries be like Aliens (which is what Doom was based on in the first place), but it fails because it's bad at building up suspense. In Aliens you don't actually see any aliens for the first third of the movie, but Doom pretty much decides not to beat around the bush and you end up seeing them shortly after the marines arrive at the facility. The attempts at building up suspense aren't very good, and the requisite false alarms end up being funny instead of suspenseful.

    I know I said I'd review it as a gamer, but I figured that I'd get all the movie stuff out of the way. As a movie it's not very good, and by all rights I should hate it, but I just can't bring myself to do that. Not because of the aforementioned unhealthy attachment to Doom, but just because it was a fun movie. Once the initial bullshit suspense build up is done, the movie gets into the nitty gritty of marines vs. monsters, and there's a whole lot of violence. There are a number of fights, many of which are so over the top that you just can't help cringing in entertainment as some poor marine gets thrown around like a rag doll.

    And since I know people will ask; I really liked the first-person sequence. I thought I would hate it, I expected to hate it, but I didn't. It was very goofy at points, but it was a pretty cool tribute to the source material, and really it was pretty interesting to watch. It's probably something you need to see in a theater to fully appreciate, because I'm sure it loses something if you watch it on a TV or in Windows Media Player (don't deny it!) without the big screen and booming sound. Anyone who is a fan of Doom will probably at least appreciate that sequence, even if you don't like it. I'm sure it will become a hot topic for debate on all the gaming web sites and forums in the future, and you know that's going to be a lot of fun.

    What else is important about Doom? They already wrecked the Hell angle, so we move on to the weapons. No rocket launcher, but there's a heavy chaingun, shotguns, pistols and what I guess were pulse rifles of some sort. Strangely the guns had flashlights attached to them. Also the Rock finds the BFG which is assuredly big and a gun of the fucking-sized variety. It fires a large blue projectile that pretty much turns whatever it hits into a smoldering pile of melted... stuff. The Rock isn't much of a BFG whore though, so he only fires it a couple times.

    Oh hey, and don't forget the zombies! If you ever wanted to see a movie where a bunch of marines mow down a shitload of zombies with automatic weapons, then you should check out Doom. Sadly all the other zombie movies I've seen were lacking in automatic weapons, which is surprising because it seems like such an obvious thing to do.

    So yeah, I didn't hate this movie and I'm sure I'll be in the minority when it comes out on Friday. I guess saying "I didn't hate it" or "it's not that bad" are the best compliments I can give it, because it's still not a very good movie by any means. So perhaps the unhealthy obsession with Doom does come into play, because I still enjoyed the movie even though I probably shouldn't have. I really couldn't tell you why. It's a just a simple, brainless movie, and you'll either hate it or enjoy it for what it is. Also apparently having an extra chromosome doesn't make you retarded, but in fact makes you super human. You learn something new every day.

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    Hell, I liked it, when I think Doom, I think violence and gore, and curse words because as I play, I curse at all the monsters as if they were real, and actually trying to get me. But I digress, the novie had, violence, teleporters, Chainsaws (That could cut through some tough shit), and a shotgun (The Goat guy was using one). Although I dont know what to classify it as, its both a sci-fi horror/suspense movie, and an action movie . . .

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    TheDarkArchon said:

    ..in your opinion. Last time I checked, you're not Cyb. OR anyone bar you.


    That's right, you retard, I am myself, not Cyb, and my 'opinion', as you put it, expresses the majority view. Everywhere I look, critics give the movie a low score. Before you retort, I know I need to point out that the kiddies in the Doom forums do NOT represent the majority of the movie goers, nor the view of more sophisticated viewers who do not settle for lame action scenes.

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    Nick Perrin said:

    [spoiler]
    Even more subtle was a guy nicknamed 'Pinky' who later in the movie turns into...


    I don't really think thats subtle at all. As a matter of fact, I think that was the least subtle thing about the movie. I don't even understand why he was called pinky. It wasn't explained or anything. I thought that he was the WORST reference to doom. However, him being a demon was pretty cool

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    Ralphis said:

    I don't really think thats subtle at all. As a matter of fact, I think that was the least subtle thing about the movie. I don't even understand why he was called pinky. It wasn't explained or anything. I thought that he was the WORST reference to doom. However, him being a demon was pretty cool

    They called him Pinky most likely because the monster he turned into was the Doom 3 version of the 'Pinky' demon.

    ...Or are you referring to why his comrades would have called him Pinky?

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    Out of curiousity, why are all the actors(except the rock) in this movie british? I was watching clips of interviews with the actors over at ign, and they all have accents, including the two black guys!! Not hating on the british or anything, but maybe that's why the movie came up short in more ways than one. The damn red coats!!!! jk

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    sargebaldy said:

    I liked Doom's plot not so much as a plot, but as a general background that never takes itself too seriously. Doom 3 obviously missed the joke and decided it was supposed to be spooky and serious, and this movie just takes it to a ridiculous level and tries to make some sort of rational sense out of things that you really weren't supposed to think deeply about in the first place.


    You do have to remember, though, that the first 2 games were made when the guys at id were in their late teens and early 20s, so their approach to that kind of game was a bit more juvenile. They're all in their early 30s now, so naturally the premise will be a bit more mature and not as asinine.

    Also think about this: perhaps that juvenile thinking was what kept id from giving any sort of approval over scripts for the game years ago. They considered Doom their "baby" and didn't want anything changed about it (whether or not it was due to lack of imagination as I stated a few threads ago is debateable). Now that it's been years since the last script was submitted to them, maybe they finally came to realize that nothing's really sacred anymore and figured a deviation on the orignal plot in a movie wouldn't be too bad after all.

    sgtcrispy said:

    The monsters should have been from hell, but I digress...


    Alright, I'll finally say it. I think many of you on this board are taking the "Hell" thing a bit too literally. IMO "Hell" is just a concept and not necessarily an actual place. It deals with suffering, hate, pain, etc. That's why I, call me crazy, actually thought Reaper calling Mars "Hell" made absolutely perfect sense, cheesiness aside.

    "Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." - Dennis Miller

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    Dennis Miller sucks. And the mutants are demons in a way. Sure, they were humans at one point, but their evilness inside completely took over after being infected. So to me, they're not human anymore, they are in fact evil creatures. Even though at one point in the movie Dr. Samantha does show that they're human(disecting the imp on the table) but fuck that, they're demons to me!!! And I do think this movie has a lot of potential for a sequel.

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    baronofhell said:

    but fuck that, they're demons to me!!!


    You forgot to mention that only "evil" or "bad" people can get infected... furthering your point about them being evil creatures. Hell, Satan was once an angel...

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    So lets get this straight, the only thing this movie has in common with the game is:

    1. Takes place on Mars.
    2. Is in the future.
    3. Has a BFG... kind of.

    No Hell, no demons, no evil unleashed by teleportation experiments... how can they even call this DOOM? Not that I'm really surprised that Hollywood ass-fucked the game but I am dissapointed in id for letting it happen. Jesus even the HALO people held out for creative control. Aside from the name I'm not sure how this even qualifies as the DOOM movie. The only upside is that this opens the door for someone else to do a film on the actual storyline as at it's base it's too generic to fully protect. Maybe there's still hope?

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    baronofhell said:

    Out of curiousity, why are all the actors(except the rock) in this movie british? I was watching clips of interviews with the actors over at ign, and they all have accents, including the two black guys!! Not hating on the british or anything, but maybe that's why the movie came up short in more ways than one. The damn red coats!!!! jk


    "jk" as a copout aside, that's the stupidest fucking thing i've ever heard.

    this was not supposed to be a hollywood movie. if it were, you can be certain it'd be so much worse than it already is.

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    Relax dethtoll, I was genuinely making a funny. There are plenty british movies I like such as.. Legend, Labyrinth, well their actually u.s. and u.k. And british actors, Sean Connery, Nicole Kidman... I was kidding man, seriously.

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    Ok, before seeing this, I read all the spoiler-filled reviews and knew exactly what to expect from this movie. However, I like action and horror and whatnot so I decided I would probably enjoy it anyway. Just as long as I got to see people shooting at scary things, it would turn out ok.

    And yet despite all of the above, the movie still fell below expectation. Shooting down a dark coridoor at the vague image of a monster is not "action". Nothing happens in the movie. Most of the time it's just people walking around, except they're not really even talking about much. So you get nothing. The fight between the big black dude and the Hellknight (GeneticMutationKnight?) would have been interesting if it werent strobe light city.

    The only 3 things I enjoyed were the following:
    1. Seeing the DooM logo on the big screen. It made me feel all tingly.
    2. That line Pinky says right before getting thwomped made me chuckle a bit.
    3. The fps sequence.

    I really expected to hate the FPS portion, but ended up liking it immensely. It was like watching a demo. Also, did anyone else catch the hero saying "whuzzat" while hunting down that imp?

    If there's anyone here who must still absolutely see this movie, my humble recommendation is to bring a laptop with a copy of the dooms and play it until the fps sequence. After seeing that, you may quickly exit the theatre.

    baronofhell said:

    And the mutants are demons in a way.

    Not to target you specifically, but it's a pretty bad sign when you have to make excuses for a movie.

    The only hope this movie has for a sequel is if it's a direct-to-video release at most. I doubt this will make any (relatively) worthwhile amount of money after this weekend. So even if the writers have some amazing ace up their sleeve where they'll blow us away with a new revelation in a sequel, we will probably never see it. Their opportunity will have been wasted.

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    I went to DooM today, dragged my lady friend to it. Honestly, I think it was alot better than I was hoping it to be. If you like crappy horror movies with little or any plot, you'll like it. They could've done with a bit more killing of hellspawn, but what can you do. My girlfriend was a little happy when they turned pinky into an actual pinky though, because she didn't think the directors would fit in a reference that obvious. If you just ignore the plot parts, and focus on the action sequences, it's good. We were both laughing our asses off when it went to first person, but only because it was such a cheesy nod to the games. Just consider it as a cheap rip off of the games, and don't expect much out of it. The plot is out the window but the demons are cool. It's a shitty action movie, but if you like doom, it'll hold your attention well enough. There's alot of things they could've done better, but it's still enjoyable. Go spend 5 bucks and see it at a matinee... or wait til it gets to the cheap theatres. Not worth 8+ bucks, but at 5 or less, it's worth seeing on the big screen. So yeah, it has enough of doom 3 in it to keep it fun, while not raping it with plot and hollywood shit. Although I wish Sarge would've ended up like he did in the game, that would've been a good final showdown. Still worth seeing if you like the game, or you like crappy horror movies. If you like both, then it's a plus.

    It was pretty pathetic to go to a matinee two days after the premiere, and have maybe 20 people in the theatre with me. That and after I gave the guy my ticket he said "Go right, after the first exit sign, turn right again." Last theatre, right next to the pisser. Not a good sign... especially not for a sequel or anything.

    Heheh.. I also laughed when Sam was doing the demonstration with the imps... worm thing... Of course it wouldn't react to Destoyers DNA. Slightly racist message in the movie?

    As for pinky... his name was pinkarzowski or somthing... And so his polish last name became his nickname. Therefore he had to become a pinky. I thought it was cheesiley entertaining. I knew he was going to change, but it was still fucking cool when he did. That chainsaw fight was very entertaining.

    In the end, take this movie with a very large dose of salt. It's fun as a horror movie, and it's fun as a sci-fi movie, just don't expect much from the original dooms to make it to it. The atmosphere is very similar to doom 3 though, very dark... In fact the staircase where he meets the hell knight in first person reminds me of a room from mars city very heavilly. You go down the stairs, and there's a zombie behind you... then you go into the generator rooms. Right after you get your armor and gun from the guy behind the glass.... I loved the references to Dr. Carmack and Dr. Willits though... I think I was the only one in the theatre that lauged about those.

    But yeah. In the end, if you like crappy horror or sci-fi movies, see it, it's fun. Or even if you like doom 3, and are willing to laugh at it, go see it. It's just a fun movie to watch, no matter if you like crappy horror movies, or if you're in love with the game. And if you like both, all the better.

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    lol funny. Hey got some good news, kinda, Doom is the #1 box office draw for this weekend according to msnbc.com. Almost 16 million raked in the premier weekend. Got a feeling it won't get to 20 mil. meh, so sad.

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    baronofhell said:

    By the way, CYB, you said there's shotguns in the movie. Where? I must've missed em.


    I believe it was when they went back into the genetics lab and wasted the zombie. When they went back in and where like "WTF? We were just here!" One of the guys had a shotgun. Think it was the one guy who took a shit later, but I never remembered his name because he pissed me off.

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    That would be the creepy guy, can't remember his name right now either. But so okay, one of the marines had a shotgun, that doesn't matter. You would think this is DOOM, you would see some more emphasis on the shotty!! Especially in the fps sequence, that would've rocked!!! They felt the need to give some love to the BFG and the chainsaw, but pretty much left out the shotgun. I don't understand this, and I don't understand why nobody else is bitching about this.

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    I think it was because they felt very little love towards the shotty in Doom 3. I used it a few times, but none of them were very memorable. I wasted the first couple zombies with it after I got it, and a handful of imps, but I didn't use it often. That and in movies... automatic rifles, or at least firearms which pump out a volume of bulllets, seem to raise the audiences level of adrenaline more than a few blasts from a shotgun. I live with an idiot who doesn't know the first thing about firearms, and she seems to love autoamtic rifles far more than shotguns, because they fire faster and movies tend to give them far more credit damagewise than what they're actually capable of. All in all, the doom 3 shotgun was pretty pussy compared to the doom 1 one, and far less impressive than the weapons they decide to give them. That's why I think it didn't give much of an appearance. Although Reaper whipping out a double barrel shotty and blasting a zombie in the chest would've been fecking cool, it just didn't fit it with the scenario they were trying to create.

    /edit
    Was that goat that had the shotty? Another character that pissed me off.

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    Texas Libra said:

    Alright, I'll finally say it. I think many of you on this board are taking the "Hell" thing a bit too literally. IMO "Hell" is just a concept and not necessarily an actual place. It deals with suffering, hate, pain, etc. That's why I, call me crazy, actually thought Reaper calling Mars "Hell" made absolutely perfect sense, cheesiness aside.

    "Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." - Dennis Miller


    But the title DOOM makes even more sense when the plot is that demons are invading and just want to destroy Earth.

    But I guess that could easily be a reference to major, unhealthy corporations of the world too.

    But still. Half the level design in Doom 1 contained satanic symbols and tormented corpses. That's half of what Doom was about.

    But then again, CYBERDEMONS with rocket launchers, from hell, didn't make much sense either. So as you said...id Software were just young men making cool shit :-)

    BUT ANYWAY....

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    baronofhell said:

    Dennis Miller sucks.


    I wasn't trying to bring in Dennis Miller into the discussion, it was just a witty attempt at making a "one-post signature", but whatever.

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    ...And the use of automatic weapons against zombies is not recommended because when firing on full auto you lack the accuracy needed to make head-shots, and therefore waste ammo. The best weapon to use is a single-action semi automatic carbine which fires one bullet every time the trigger is pulled, which forces the user to make every shot count. Dont ya know.

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    Anyone else notice that the entrance to the Arc (when it slides up from the ground) is the top portion of the II from DOOM2? As this is where they're headed at the end, it's obvious where the sequel's going to start off....>So go see the fucking movie again so they'll make a sequel and get the ending right!

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    I'd probably like it if the bases were built out of huge brown and green concrete blocks and there were outdoor shots with a bright green misty mountainous skyline.

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    heh...I had such a better plot outline for a DOOM movie. maybe I should start writing a sequel based off what they did in this one and try and salvage some things they did wrong.

    Make that filthy lucre!

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    deathbringer said:

    ...And the use of automatic weapons against zombies is not recommended because when firing on full auto you lack the accuracy needed to make head-shots, and therefore waste ammo. The best weapon to use is a single-action semi automatic carbine which fires one bullet every time the trigger is pulled, which forces the user to make every shot count. Dont ya know.


    "i don't normally need that many."

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    I'd probably like it if the bases were built out of huge brown and green concrete blocks and there were outdoor shots with a bright green misty mountainous skyline.


    For once, Fredrik, fuckin' a.

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