Doomsday

Synopsis

A deadly virus breaks out in present-day Scotland, killing a massive amount of people. The British government tries to quarantine the virus by locking the infected behind a secure wall. When the virus reemerges in London 30 years into the future, political leaders send Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra, Shooter) to Scotland to find a cure based on the evidence of non-infected survivors living inside the wall. When Sinclair and her team run into two strange groups of survivors, Doomsday takes on a new threat level. Director/Writer Neil Marshall (director of The Descent) holds nothing back with audience suspense, action and extreme gore.

Review

'Elo chaps. Cheerio!

Flying severed heads, chopped off bloody limbs and just crazy looking people is Doomsday—packed into 105 minutes of “What in the world?” scenes. This creepy film is one of sick violence to the nth degree. Director/writer Neil Marshall definitely had to receive inspiration from the Mad Max, Escape from New York, Excalibur and 28 days. These movies include either warfare, viral epidemic break outs, walled-in savages, medieval flare, and just straight up brutality. This all makes me wonder if Marshall is a little nutty himself. Hmmmmm. I’ve been trying to figure out the inner makings of writers/directors that think up these kinds of films? Perhaps I’m just as bad for watching them…hey, I have an excuse…I’m a critic. I have to watch all genres. Well, I know half of the stuff I couldn’t even dream of putting in a film. One of them would be cannibalism. Yep—this movie even has that. All said, Doomsday is plenty disgusting, a little funny, and probably forgettable.

The year 2008 starts off Doomsday with a fatal infectious virus which plagues Scotland something terrible. The British government successfully walls off the country and contains the virus. Woo hoo, until thirty years of quarantine later, the virus reappears in London. Ah mess! The Prime Minister and his right hand man call upon Captain Nelson (Bob Hoskins, Unleashed) to put a team together and send them on an expedition to find a cure in Scotland since there is news of possible survivors. Oh, and survivors there are:

Why do directors always think that if human beings are stripped of modern civilization, they’ll revert to looking like Marilyn Manson’s posse? First of all, are they CRAZY? I’m not spoiling anything with these next statements because it’s shown in the trailer. YES they are crazy. First site of these barbaric savages, I would have been OUTTIE. The way these people were acting and looking just isn’t natural. The gang leader, Sol is so diabolical and when he screams he looks like his veins are about to bust and his eyes are going to pop out of the sockets. Jeez…

Doomsday is LOADED with gore and violence. This flick is just a concoction of several movie ideas mixed together and some of the 2nd and 3rd Act action scenes were soooo over-the-top I ended up chuckling. I didn’t know what to think. I don’t know if there was time for character development or there was no room for it, but this film truly lacked it. The main character Sinclair is one tough woman. She is so darn tough; I really didn’t FEEL her back-story. Not good. I need a little back-story to draw me into the characters. But she will open a big ol' can on someone if you look at her cross eyed.

If the aforementioned gore and violence doesn’t bother you, then checking this out at a matinee would be okay because action movies are great on the big screen. For me, I’d be cool with it on DVD. If the movie didn’t get so silly at the end and the subplots were a little better, I may have reeled it higher.

My Rating ~ 2 Reels

Audience Rating (What's Yours?)