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Starring
Rhona Mitra, Bob Hoskins, and Malcolm McDowell
Directed by
Neil Marshall
Final Grade:
C-Rated R for strong bloody violence, language and some sexual content/nudity
a review by Heith Carnahan
The Rundown
In mid-2008, the United Kingdom comes under attack by a deadly virus authorities have named Reaper. Scotland in particular is the epicenter of the outbreak, and hundreds of thousands have died painfully bloody deaths within weeks.
The British government quickly decides treatment cannot happen fast enough and opts merely for containment... in the form of a 35-foot wall stretching from the UK's Western coast to its Eastern coast. Scotland, The Hot Zone, is shut off from the rest of the world, the people inside are left for dead, and the British government considers this the best possible plan of action, given their options.
Twenty-five years later, the Reaper virus reappears in London. Meanwhile, satellite photos trained on Scotland have spotted survivors, and the presence of survivors must mean a cure exists somewhere. With another outbreak looming, the Brits are sending their best soldier, Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) over the wall and into The Hot Zone in search of the cure.
All Action, No Substance
Judging from the trailers we've seen over the past weeks, it's little wonder Doomsday comes across as a tattooed, cut-em-up gorefest aimed directly at the adolescent high school crowd. The film begins with what will have to pass for the film's backstory: a very young Sinclair being shoved onto the last military helicopter out of Scotland by her mother, who stays behind to brave the outbreak. We flash forward to the year 2033, and Scotland has been left for dead by the rest of the world. Few people know what has happened on the other side of the wall except for the government, who has kept spy satellites employed to monitor any activity that might betray an escape attempt. But a fresh outbreak of the Reaper virus in highly-populated London has coincided with new satellite photos showing surivors out walking around north of the wall, and in comes the military to try and seize an opportunity to nail down a cure.
What they find instead is a society overrun by murderous gang leaders intent on piercing every imaginable part of their bodies and then surrounding them with tattoos. Every horrific societal nightmare you can think of is on full display here, including the imprisonment, torture, and murder of anyone in sight for no apparent reason. Major Sinclair is looking for a man named Kane (Malcolm McDowell), the brilliant doctor who had been working on a cure before the wall went up, but they're not even sure he's still alive, to say nothing of having found a cure for the Reaper virus.
With as much as they try to pack into this thing, there's just not much substance to be found. We've had a handful of really good viral outbreak movies in the last several years (28 Days Later immediately comes to mind), but Doomsday neither tries to emulate those nor breaks any new ground anyone will care about. This isn't a zombie movie, and the Reaper virus doesn't turn people into anything interesting--it just kills them very, very slowly. Because of this, the virus isn't even the real villain, and therein lies my major disappointment: I had hoped for some glimpse of the societal breakdown that made films like 28 Days Later so thrilling and successful. Instead, we're handed 90-some minutes of bloody action and chase sequences that are only semi-interesting, and they're manned by screaming, foul-mouthed Brits with crazy hair and more piercings than they have good sense. There's nothing engaging about it; my real fear lies in the knowledge that most likely, the filmmakers accomplished exactly what they set out to accomplish, and that alone should tell you to stay away.
The Bottom Line
Fans of action and gore will love it. Anyone looking for something even remotely engaging need not bother.
-- Heith Carnahan, heith @ movie-popcorn.com