Doom

Year of release : 2005

Run time : 1h48min

Genre : Sci Fi / Horror / Action

Cast : Karl Urban, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Rosamund Pike

Doom is based on the video game of the same name by 'id Software'.

In 2026 humanity discovered a wormhole portal with which they traveled to Mars. 20 years later, they built a facility on Mars, where scientists do archeological research. Or so they say.

The marines receive a distress call sent by one of the doctors, and Sarge accepts the search and destroy mission. He tells Reaper to sit this one down, as the mission is to Mars,where his sister,with whom he didn't talk in 10 years, is.

 

They use the star gate to travel to Mars.

Reaper joins his twin sister, Samantha Grimm (get it,Reaper from Grimm, the Grimm Reaper?) as she has to retrieve the data from the computers .

She tells him they reopened the dig site where their parents died 10 years prior ,and they found ancient humanoid skeletons genetically enhanced with an artificial 24th chromosome.

While looking for survivors,they find the doctor who sent the distress call. He disappears on their watch.

A creature appears ,and they follow it to the sewer system,where it sprays its tongue at one of them,leaving something in his neck before detaching.

 

Sam performs an autopsy of the creature and discovers it's human!

The marine k1lled by the creature comes back as a sort of zombie, and k1lls himself by repeatedly hitting his head against the bulletproof glass.

After losing a few more people and discovering and k1lling more creatures, Sam and Reaper realize the research team tested the 24th chromosome on people,and they turned into these creatures.

I personally enjoyed the movie, it didn't bore me, I was interested in the story. I'd say it had a good plot, about a serum which turns half of the population into super humans while the other into zombies.

I liked the action scenes, and the final fight between Sarge and Reaper.

The actors were good, the only one I felt didn't give 100% being The Rock.

Rosamund Pike had to scream a lot. I remember at the time Doom was released I watched the 'Behind the Scenes' in which she said she played in a lot of period pieces at the time and it was nice to get out of the corset.

I also remember the two lead actors, The Rock and Karl Urban, saying they were supposed to play the part the other one played, as in, Karl to play Sarge and The Rock, Reaper, but The Rock wanted to play Sarge,thinking the character was more interesting.

 

The visual effects were good,they stand the test of time. The first person shooter scene was planned for three months,and took 14 days to shoot, Farhat,the director of the sequence (because the movie was directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak), making the multiple cuts,as he called them 'hook-ups',when the camera moved,a door opened, or when they passed by something.

 

The soundtrack,composed by Clint Mansell, was Ok,but to me,it felt it didn't match.

The movie had negative reviews, grossing 58.7 million dollars against a budget of around 70 million. Although a box office bomb, the audiences gave it a B-, on an A+ to F scale!

Doom is streaming for free on Amazon Video, and Amazon Video with Ads, and is for rent / sale on Amazon, AppleTv, Fandango at Home.

Rating : Worth a watch !