[Zack]

Prologue:

It was the early 1990's when I first started playing computer games, and Doom was one of the very first games I ever played on my computer. I remember enjoying playing it, but I never finished it because I thought the end boss was too tough. After that, I stayed away from First-person Shooter games because I thought they were all just action, and no story, and moved on to adventure games. In 2004, that was the year when I finally decided to do a change of pace, and was very happy that I did because I fell in love with the No One Lives Forever games and was introduced to stealth action by playing the Tom Clancy Splinter Cell Games, and also began trying out various demos for different kinds of games that I thought would be fun to play.

Then one day in the later months of 2004, I learned on the Internet that Hollywood was planning to make Doom into a movie. The idea of turning a legendary computer game into a movie intrigued me, and I did my best to pay attention to it's development cycle. I became very excited when I learned that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was hired to be one of the lead characters. I knew then that I wanted to see the movie, partly because of him, and also because I thought he did a great job as the lead hero in "The Rundown. Now, it has finally arrived in theaters nationwide, and today, I went to the movie theater I work at, and saw the video game-movie adaptation of Doom for free. Curious as to how my reaction to the movie was? Well, all I can say is...READ ON!.

The Review:

The year is 2026, and the main setting is a research facility on the completely barren planet, Mars. The Union Aerospace Company (UAC for short) is doing an archaeological dig on the planet, but that's just their cover of operations on the planet. A scientist named Dr. Carmack (wink,wink ) sends a radio transmission to Earth, hoping that somebody will be able to get to Mars, and save everyone on the planet. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays a futuristic soldier named "The Sarge", who takes his high-tech group of soldiers to Mars, to figure out exactly what happened on the planet that would force Dr. Carmack to send an S.O.S. On Mars, they encounter a female scientist named Sam, who is actually The Sarge's right hand man John Grimm's (a.k.a. The Reaper) sister, and she is one of the scientists who worked on the secret project. With specific orders to neutralize any hostilities, The Sarge, and his fellow soldiers are suddenly forced to defend themselves and the scientists from Zombified humans, and Monsters that have supernatural strength. They also learn about a genetic experiment that the Scientists were doing in complete secrecy that had suddenly gone completely awry.

The Official Opinion on the movie:

"Doom The Movie" is a totally action-packed 115 minute thrill ride, and anyone who loves hard-core action is bound to enjoy it. The acting was decent, but not wonderful, but I geuss that's what you can expect from an action movie that takes itself pretty seriously. The three lead actors: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, (who I must admit I am a fan of), Karl Urban, and Rosamund Pike in my opinion played their roles very well. The Rock was a total badass as "The Sarge", and even though he did not show very much emotion in the movie, I still rooted for him. One of the best scenes in the film is where The Sarge gains access to a top-secret room that contains The Doom Game series' legendary weapon, The BFG 9000. The BFG stands for Bio-Force Gun, but I'm sure that every long-time Doom fan lovingly refers it to as Big F###### Gun. The first time, The Sarge fires the gun at one of the Superhuman mutated monsters, he has a very surprised look at his face from how strong the gun is, and I couldn't help but laugh. That scene was pure cheese, and just fun to watch.

Karl Urban has the challenging task of playing the movie's lead hero, The Reaper. His movie history includes playing the villain in both "The Bourne Supremacy" (which I haven't seen yet) and "The Chronicles of Riddick". They're not exactly epic films, but I bet they were entertaining ones, though. So, this must've been an interesting change of pace for him, and I thought he did an admirable job. Rosamund Pike, who played a Gorgeous Bond girl in "Die Another Day" plays The Reaper's sister Sam, and her character is as by-the-book as they get, but she did a decent job playing her. The other actors who played The Sarge's fellow Soldiers however, were really terrible, and I'm pretty sure you will be able to guess what happens to them.

The best scene in the movie is a non-stop action sequence that takes place in The First-person Shooter Perspective, and lasts for about probably 10 minutes. It is obviously a loving tribute to the old Run-and-gun first-person shooter games, and it looked really cool. The only flaw is that a casual movie goer who has never played The Doom Games before might get confused as to what's going on.

Other than the acting that fluctuated from decent to terrible, there is only one other negative flaw in the movie, and it's the brother, and sister side-plot. John Grimm, and Sam both have a tragic past, because their parents died when they were very young. What I didn't like about it is that it felt like this side-plot in the movie wasn't fully fleshed out and explained. Maybe if I see it again someday, I'll understand it more.

Overall Verdict:

Overall, I enjoyed this movie, but it wasn't excellent. It was fairly faithful to the Doom Legacy, because it had Zombies, and Superhuman Monsters in it. The best thing about it is that it's very action-packed, but it also had some quiet moments to let everyone catch their breath, and there's also lots and lots of gore in the movie, so everyone who feared that the movie would get the dreaded PG-13 rating can relax, because this is a Hard-Core R-rated movie. The main problem with the movie is that it plays like a High-Profile Sci-Fi Channel movie on Channel 36 for anyone who has Cable, instead of an expertly made Science Fiction Action-Horror film. But, if you can accept that it's just a fun and entertaing movie that you can watch in the afternoon, and not a great film then by all means go see it. I'll give it a 3 out of 5.

Closing Comment:

I hope you all enjoyed reading this review, and I'm looking forward to seeing your comments on it.

[squarejawhero]

Being a fan of cheese, this and Into The Blue are on my must-see list. Thanks for the epinion!