Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on October 21, 2005, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
How generic is the Doom movie? So generic that when, late in the running time, it presents a lengthy monster-blasting setpiece from a “first-person shooter” point of view echoing the game it’s based on, the approach seems less like the distracting gimmick it could have been and actually comes as a relief. It’s a respite from the 70 or so minutes of previous action, which looks very much like every prowling-through-murky-hallways-with-guns creature feature to follow in the wake of Aliens.
The problem that appears to have occurred to none of the people adapting the likes of Doom, Resident Evil, House of the Dead, etc. to the big screen is that those games took their cues from movies in the first place. Extra imagination is required so that the game-based films don’t simply come off as carbon copies of the original inspirations, but director Andrzej Bartkowiak and scripters Dave Callaham and Wesley Strick (a good screenwriter apparently having an off day) don’t come up with much to distinguish Doom. A good deal of the basic storyline, in fact, is such an imitation of Aliens that they should have waited a year to release the film and called it a 20th-anniversary homage.
Once again, a remote outpost on a distant planet (in this case Mars) has been wiped out by forces unknown, and once again, a platoon of heavily armed space Marines is sent out to investigate. Before the action can start, however, there’s some heavy scientific exposition by Dr. Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike), who has survived the massacre—and is the sister of one of the soldiers, John Grimm (Karl Urban), a development that doesn’t result in as much drama as it should. She’s been doing research on ancient Martians that suggests they were humanoids, and one of her discoveries is the skeleton of an ancient Martian mother trying to shield the skeleton of her ancient Martian child from—something. Considering the violence that the eventual monsters wreak on their victims, the fact that they are perfectly preserved in that position makes it a find indeed.
Despite the constant references to hell in both the movie and its advertising, the monsters apparently resulted from an additional chromosome that caused the Martians to mutate into superhuman, unstoppable killers. These critters have now been unleashed in the Mars facility, and start picking off the Marines, working their way up a cast of what the press notes refer to as “classically trained theater actors.” But the material ain’t Shakespeare, just a lot of undistinguished tough-guy and wiseass dialogue. The toughest guy of them all is the sergeant in charge, helpfully named Sarge and played by The Rock with the appropriate intensity but an unfortunate lack of the humor and personality he’s brought to many of his previous roles. Here he’s restricted to playing a combat veteran who’s a hard case in the beginning and becomes a harder case as things get more desperate, and whose “shoot anything that moves” philosophy predictably comes to apply to humans as well as monsters.
Under the circumstances, it’s no surprise that he’s ultimately upstaged by the BFG (which, for those unfamiliar with the game, means Bio-Force Gun and not what you’d think), which can put tractor-trailer-sized holes in walls and obliterate stuff real good. The creatures are tough targets, though, as they move pretty fast and are rarely glimpsed in sufficient light to get a good look at them. From what we can see of them, the FX by Stan Winston Studio are pretty impressive, and the filmmakers do deserve kudos for utilizing live-action creations instead of CGI beasts in a large percentage of their scenes. On the other hand, monster fans will be disappointed that the movie builds not to a final battle with an especially big “boss,” but a human showdown that would have been more satisfying if there were a real sense of drama or suspense to it.
A friend recently lamented to me that the video games which have been transformed into movies have not been those with complex plotlines, but those that showcase simple (if graphically elaborate) action. The reason for that would seem to be that story-based games are satisfying enough on their own and don’t require cinematic adaptation, while first-person shooter-based features offer the promise of fresh plots and characters backing up the mayhem. Doom, however, joins Resident Evil: Apocalypse and the Uwe Boll oeuvre on the growing list of films that fail to deliver even the visceral excitement of playing the games oneself, much less the extra bonus of narrative interest.
