Doomsday (2008)Director: Neil Marshall
Writer: Neil Marshall
Adeola Ariyo ... Nurse
Emma Cleasby ... Katherine Sinclair
Christine Tomlinson ... Young Eden Sinclair
Vernon Willemse ... David / Gimp
Nathan Wheatley ... Patient "X"
Rhona Mitra ... Maj. Eden Sinclair
The Reaper virus is sweeping across Great Britain. The authorities decide to set up a quarantine zone where the infected can die off at their leisure. Years later, the virus resurfaces to lay waste to the population again. This time the government does the responsible thing and sends a babe with big guns into the hot zone. She’s searching for the cure among the wastelands. She will have to be a Road Warrior while she Escapes from New York, I mean the hot zone. But she can’t wait 28 Days Later to run away. She needs to leave these Streets of Fire before the Warriors get her.
The word that kept ringing in my brain after I finished watching “Doomsday” was “derivative”. Not only did I feel like I’d seen this movie before, I got the feeling I had seen this movie many times before in different forms. “Doomsday” goes beyond mere homage. This is out right highway robbery. The director took all of the 80’s movies that inspired him, threw them in the blender and gorged himself on this bloated cocktail of blood and guts.It’s hard to love “Doomsday” as you know every action scene is lifted from a better movie. But if you’re a B-movie freak, it’s also hard not to get a kick out of all the slobbering love for extreme violence on display here. One mans excess can be another mans treasure.
There are certain movie rules I live by. Like any movie with a decapitation has to be good on some level. Heads and other important body parts fly all over “Doomsday”. There is plenty of gratuitous violence as the head babe, (Linda Hamilton, I mean Rhona Mitra), blasts her way through the wastelands looking for the cure. When she got to the castle and had to have a gladiator fight with a knight in shining armor, I almost lost my mind. The movie had gone far over the top at that point but still wasn’t satisfied until it squeezed in one more Mad Max style car chase.
Needless to say, I was pleased with “Doomsday”. Oh sure, it’s a complete rip-off of every single sci-fi action flick ever made. But it’s a fun one. If you’re looking for some brain dead action, “Doomsday” will serve you well.
SCORE: 3 out of 4 babes of the wasteland
I think that the internet's access to information has jaded many. Meaning, all those little nods and homages to a director's favorite films or era would be lost on most... most would think they are just cool (or not) and go on with their lives... but for us, trust me, they would have been little tid bits of love for an era/movie that only a few would have understood. Remember when we were geeks before the internet? All that information, lost on the masses? Tis how you came to love B flicks in the first place and found a way later with the internet to express and share your love for such things... But it doesn't mean we can't be tickled still by such commanding flicks such as 'Doomsday'... I'm an American living in China and I had no idea what this movie was about... When I saw all those little homages to the great movies I loved, I was alone, for I was watching it with my Chinese friends... It would be the same experience if we had watched this and very few if anyone got the 'inside' nods... Anyways... I just watched it again by myself today... and I really like this movie... Sure, it's been done so much recently but, this was done very well....
ReplyDeleteThe internet has certainly made it easier for people to get the homages in films spelled out for them. But let's not get too nostalgic for the geeks of yesterday. Let's celebrate being a geek of today! If it wasn't for the internet, this whole B-movie blog wouldn't exist. Technology brings the geeks of the world together. Whether it is the rampant homages throughout "Doomsday" or talking about how hot the B-movie babes are, the internet is an invaluable tool of pure geekness. Long may it reign.
ReplyDeleteI want to bugger Rhona Mitra (as she was in 1994 when she was 18, not as she is now obviously).
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