Doom

Release Date: October 21, 2005
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Screenwriter: Wesley Strick, Dave Callaham
Starring: Karl Urban, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Rosamund Pike, Deobia Oparei, Ben Daniels, Raz Adoti, Richard Brake, Al Weaver
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
MPAA Rating: R (for strong violence/gore and language)
Official Website: Doommovie.com

Plot Summary: Something has gone wrong at a remote scientific research station on Mars. All research has ceased. Communication has failed. And the messages that do get through are less than comforting. It's a level 5 quarantine and the only souls allowed in or out are the Rapid Response Tactical Squad - hardened Marines armed to the teeth with enough firepower to neutralize the enemy... or so they think. The research being done at Odluval station has unwittingly opened a door and all hell has broken loose. A legion of nightmarish creatures of unknown origin lurk behind every wall and stalk the countless rooms and tunnels of the facility, killing what few people remain.

Sealing off the portal to Earth, Sarge (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), Reaper (Karl Urban) and their team must use every weapon at their disposal - and some they find along the way - to carry out their orders: nothing gets out alive.

The game that electrified a generation leaps from the computer screen to the big screen as a terrifying science-fiction action adventure that will transport moviegoers to a dark and disturbing future with all the visceral excitement and horror that made its gaming predecessor a global phenomenon.

Reviewed by Peter Veugelaers © 2005
- Take a pot shot but be warned.

Doom stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who plays the gung-ho military commander of an Aleinsesque troop of diverse and earthy soldiers who go to Mars via sophisticated Star Trekin’ technology to find out what happened on a scientific lab on the planet after scientists there get mauled by an unidentified threat. An interlude of more serious storytelling and background involving a military brother (Karl Urban) and scientist sister (Rosamund Pike), and the basic thread of finding and destroying the threat, indicate this is a narrative movie but is essentially a sophisticated shadow of video game mimicry, but with brains. This is part loose religious metaphor, part quasi-science speak and speculation on the human genome, part Frankenstein inspired, and part commentary on American reaction to outsider threats, which are sketched in as stylised touches.

Director Andrzej Bartkowiak, a veteran cinematographer (as long back as The Verdict) whose action movies such as Cradle 2 the Grave exposed his talent for raw action, again does not refrain from the grating to the bone, in this case gore, blood, humongous guns, and ugly predators running amok killing scientists, the screen tells all. Doom does not take itself too seriously when self-depreciating humour works to its advantage. The lazy ending lets down an otherwise enjoyable action/horror movie.