Of all the films I’ve seen, I have only witnessed (as in a crime) two films which made me consider walking out of the theater. One of those was the movie “Toys”, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robin Williams. Heavy-handed much? The second movie is “Doomsday”. Yeah, you saw that coming, didn’t you?
When I saw the trailer for this film, I thought exactly what everyone was (hopefully) thinking: this thing looks like every action/sci-fi/horror movie ever made between 1978 and 1988. Funny thing about ducks; if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck, it’s probably a really shitty movie. This celluliodian black hole sucked all hope along with my soul into a singularity of despair, anger, and disbelief.
Doomed from frame one, it’s the Frankenstein’s Monster of all the genres to which it caters. Unfortunately, instead of the abnormal brain, they put in one capable of even less style, humor and skill. The Synopsis: A deadly plague infects the populace of Glasgow, Scotland. The English wall-off the whole country to quarantine them. The un-infected riot to escape, during which, a young girl is given to soldiers to take out on a helicopter so she might live. Everyone else is trapped there and civilization collapses in Scotland over the years and the world assumes they all died. Forward to the year 2035. That little girl is now Eden Sinclair, played by Rhona Mitra, who is really hot but not hot enough to save this movie. Of course, she’s an agent for some British government agency that is really sneaky and wears tight black stuff. We find that the British Prime Minister, played by Doctor Bashir from “Deep Space Nine”, and his cronies have known for some time that some people survived the plague which leads them to believe there is an antidote.
Cue conversation between the Prime Minister and his subordinate, actor Bob Hoskins (!?), regarding a suicide plan to retrieve the antidote. They need “their best man” to lead the team into Scotland. That’s the “Escape From New York” part. Then there’s the “28 Days Later” part, then the “Aliens” part, followed by the “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” part, then the “Excaliber” part (oh yes, knights on horseback), then the “Road Warrior” part.
The guy that wrote and directed this crap directed one of my favorite horror/thrillers of recent years, “The Descent”. Perhaps a one hit wonder? There are these little moments in this movie that, if the tone was more tongue in cheek, or humorous, even cheesy, you would think they were homages to other films. For instance, the big wall has these automated motion-sensor gun turrets on them. They show a little bunny in the grass; and suddenly it gets blown to bloody bits – a gorier version of a Monty Python gag. Then a scene where they find a tunnel and it contains hundreds of crates of all sizes, and someone mentions the Ark of the Covenant. Is this a nod to “Raiders”? I suppose, in this soulless sort of way. The few moments of on-screen humor, was, I believe, purely coincidental.
Man, the things I do for my friends. The ONLY upside was that I saw it at the Mann theater at the Beverly Center and they gave me two free movie passes because of some random lawsuit settlement regarding debit/credit cards. Maybe I’ll go find something good to see to take this bad taste out of my mouth, eyes and mind.
See you in line for…oh, forget it.
Neil Weakley
