Universal had high hopes for “Doom.” An international consortium was
put together to make this moderately expensive movie, based on a home
video game wildly popular the world over. But the movie tanked at the
box office—has ANY movie based on a video game done particularly well?
It’s possible that they tend to make their money in ancillary
markets—that is, on video.
But even if that’s true, if a customer has a choice between a standard
DVD of the movie and this high-definition DVD, there’s no compelling
reason to go with the more expensive disc, as high-definition adds very
little to this movie—which needs all the help it can get.
Occasionally, studios have fun playing with their logos, as when with
movies with winter setting, we see the logo covered in snow. Universal
has had more fun with the image BEHIND the logo—the Earth itself. (So
shouldn’t the name be Planetary rather than Universal? Go figure.) In
“Waterworld,” the oceans on the globe gradually filled until, as the
title said, it’s a world of water. Here, the globe isn’t even Earth:
it’s Mars, the single witty touch in the whole movie. And, actually,
just about the only image in the film enhanced by being shown in high
definition. The mountains, plains and canyons of the Red Planet can be
seen in detail. Unfotunately, then the movie starts.
We’re told that a “portal” to Mars was found in Arizona; as the movie
begins, the portal has been taking people back and forth to Mars for
some time, and there’s a large scientific base there. But things have
gone wrong. People begin going berserk—and worse. They gradually
transform into monsters, but evidently guided by the game, they don’t
all turn into the same kind of monsters. One even becomes a nearly
featureless beast that’s all mouth, neck and legs, no nose, no eyes, no
ears. Others are somewhat standard upright monsters with fangs and
claws. None of them except the crawling mouth are seen very clearly,
but this is not a complaint.
Yes, it’s another variation on/ripoff of “Alien,” or more specifically,
“Aliens.” A team of gung-ho Marines headed by, of course, Sarge (The
Rock), is teleported to Mars to see what the devil is going on up
there. The teleportation device looks like a flying glob of mercury,
and isn’t entirely consistent in how it behaves; one of the scientists
(Dexter Fletcher) arrived without his legs and lower torso. Of course,
there are people with Issues. Sarge’s right-hand man, Reaper (Karl
Urban), turns out to really be John Grimm, estranged brother of
Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike), one of the scientists on Mars.
There’s essentially no plot. It’s run run run through metallic
corridors, then shoot shoot shoot in those same corridors. There are
lots of sliding doors. There are occasional electrical explosions.
Sometimes monsters grab people. Repeat as necessary. Marines are
killed, some Marines turn into monsters, and we never know why this is
happening. There isn’t the faintest clue; this isn’t a story, it’s just
a situation—which is fine for video games, but terrible for movies made
with as little style and panache as “Doom.”
There is plenty of monsters, and Stan Winston’s team (occasionally
augmented by CGI), does skilled, professional work—but we’ve seen this
same kind of thing so often before; the monsters have no
characterization at all (their sole driving force: kill kill kill).
Sometimes they spit out their tongues, which attack like frenetic
slugs. There’s just nothing to this combat except more of the same. The
only way to tell any given ten minute section of “Doom” from any other
ten minute section is by how many Marines are alive. The theatrical
release ran 100 minutes; this DVD is 113. Surely the main thing this
film didn’t need was to be longer.
The most amusing and interesting sequence, and also the one in which
the high-definition process really is an advantage, is based directly
on the video game. We see Reaper’s gun in front of us as he dashes down
clanking hallways encountering monsters. He whirls on a room, and we
whirl too; there’s another monster, bang bang shoot shoot. There’s even
a special short in the additional material that shows the very clever
ways in which this hero point-of-view shot was created.
But the rest of the movie simply isn’t very exciting, though it is
very, very busy. Andrzej Bartkowiak formerly was a skilled
cinematographer, but made the transition to director with Jet Li’s
“Romeo Must Die.” He’s handled other action movies since then, another
with Jet Li and one, for his sins, with Steven Seagal. He’s never
likely to rise very far above these routine, studio action movies
unless he can get financing to go in another direction. (That may be
happening; his next film is supposedly about Columbian drug king Pablo
Escobar.)
There’s a lot of gore splattered through the movie; the hi-def process
allows you to see each droplet of blood with crystal clarity, but it’s
hard to identify that as an advantage. It’s like having one of Sarge’s
crew a cynical, sex freak religious fanatic—it’s a detail, sure, but it
doesn’t really add a damned thing. On the other hand, when a monster
gets its hands on a chain saw, at least we’re looking at something new.
(But why would anyone need a chain saw on Mars?)
The Martian setting is merely a colorful detail. The physical reality
of Mars plays utterly no part in the proceedings; there isn’t even the
slightest attempt to emulate Mars’s lower gravity. The thin air is all
outside, as is the red dust. These people could just as well being
running around metal corridors in Romania—which is where they actually
were.
Toward the end, Sarge is Infected and takes on some slight monster
traits (fangs, weird eyes), to go mano-a-monstro with Reaper. The
outcome is wearily predictable. So is just about all of “Doom.”
There are some interesting ancillary features. There’s a boring
documentary on “Basic Training,” with the Rock and other crew members
undergoing, like it says, basic training. “Rock Formation” is more of
the same. “Master Monster Makers” is about Stan Winston’s team and how
they made the monsters work—a combination of suits and audioanimatronic
heads, with some CGI tweaking. “Doom Nation” is about the original
game, with gamers Kevin Pereira, Morgan Webb and others bragging about
their prowess. “Game On” is hints for playing the game; I didn’t look
at this as I’ve never played the game. It may be useful for “Doom”
enthusiasts—who are probably the only real audience for this clunker of
a movie.
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