DVD review (region 2)
Directed by Neil Marshall
Starring Rhona Mitra, Bob Hoskins, Malcolm McDowell, Sean Pertwee, Craig Conway, Alexander Siddig, Adrian Lester
Release date 1 September 2008 (UK)
2035. For 27 years Scotland has been walled off from the rest of Britain to contain the deadly Reaper virus. But when there’s a new outbreak in England, the British government sends in a crack squad led by Eden Sinclair (Mitra) to locate Doctor Kane (McDowell) – who it is believed may know a cure…
Neil Marshall’s latest gore-drenched outing begins very much in the 28 Days Later vein – killer virus spreads quickly through the UK population prompting bloody panic and marshal law. But after a couple of swift plot turns, the movie develops into an outlandish mash-up of Mad Max, Aliens, Resident Evil, The Warriors and Escape from New York. It’s nowhere near as good as that description makes it sound, but it does retain its own over-the-top charm.
Despite borrowing from the aforementioned classics, Doomsday is in many ways surprisingly original. After a rather stuttering first 20 minutes (though there is a good woman-in-a-bathtub-with-a-shotgun moment), things pick up when Sinclair’s crack team are ambushed by a band of feral punks, led by mohicaned maniac Sol (Conway). The scene in which Sol, accompanied by pole dancers and the sound of the Fine Young Cannibals, takes to the stage in front of a cheering crowd of Thunderdome escapees is both amusing and very, very strange. Things get stranger still as a marine is boiled alive and dished up to the braying crowd – now you didn’t see that in 28 Days Later.
Marshall continues to deliver deliriously inventive sequences such as this and it becomes difficult to spot where exactly the story is heading (a good thing). From virus horror and post-apocalyptic nightmare, the plot suddenly drops its characters in the midsts of a pseudo-medieval tribe run by the loony Doctor Kane (played by McDowell, who restricts himself to medium-level hamming). This leads on to one of the movie’s highlights, a brutal arena battle between Sinclair and a mace-swinging gladiator (think a bloodier version of Return of the Jedi’s Luke Vs Rancor monster showdown), though the scene is topped by a cracking final car chase.
The problem with Doomsday lies in Marshall’s script. While his pulpy dialogue was appropriate enough in his low budget debut Dog Soldiers and the clichés were toned down for claustrophobic chiller The Descent, the more ambitious Doomsday exposes his limitations as a scriptwriter. Most of the dialogue here just seems to consist of people swearing at each other or uttering entirely inappropriate English colloquialisms – it’s difficult to keep a straight face as Bob Hoskins murmurs “What's got your knickers in a twist?” or when Adrian Lester’s tough-talking solider Norton commands the team to “Make it snappy.” And while the bad guys, especially Conway’s Sol, are as colourful and crazy as they should be, there are no decent heroes to rival Snake Plissken or Ellen Ripley.
Doomsday has the shell of a great movie, and there’s no denying it’s a lot of fun. But if Marshall wants to be taken more seriously as a filmmaker, he should consider teaming up with a co-writer for future projects. Matt McAllister
VERDICT: 6/10
Great ideas and fantastic action scenes are let down by an often atrocious script.
Click here to read an interview with Neil Marshall.
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