Film Review: Doom

In 1993, the video game Doom was released with resounding success and extreme controversy.  Its legacy is massive:  the game presented the dawn of a new style and genre of gaming, pushing the envelope of graphics, technology, and gameplay.  Adapting this classic game for the big screen would have been a promising opportunity on many levels.

I was thoroughly surprised when this film was released in 2005 with shockingly little fanfare; perhaps it was under-marketed for a reason.  As it is, the Doom film is a tragically missed opportunity; the filmmakers could have drawn upon many aspects from the games to make something really scary and really badass.  Instead, it looks like the filmmakers took the surface-level aspects of the games and slapped them together in a passionless and generic fashion.  The film has all the dark and high-tech settings of Doom 3, plus one BFG (gamers will know what this is), a handful of "demons," and a smattering of shootouts and fights (including one scene shot entirely FPS-style).  The film, however, lumbers along haphazardly, stringing together random encounters and action scenes with the bare minimum plot development and an entire cast of shallow characters who serve as little more than monster-fodder.  Even if you look at it on its own merits, the story is not that interesting.

The biggest crime I see about this film is that it omits so much that would have been cinematically awe-inspiring.  Hell does not exist in the film, so all the demons on-screen are explained away with a totally different (and rather inane) explanation.  The premise of a transporter accident causing one of Mars' moons to disappear is not used.  That also means that none of the characters actually go to Hell to fight the onslaught of demons, the way it happens in the games.  That also means that all the signature demons (the big fleshy ball of teeth, the fire-throwing imps, and the gargantuan cyberdemon) are absent.  Any of the horror or thrills from all these aspects are gone with them; the games crafted an unnerving and adrenaline-inducing experience with their use of combat, lighting, level design, and aesthetics; the movie never strives to do the same on any level.

Despite all that is stripped away from the film, it does have its moments.  It is loaded with loud action and gnarly blood and gore; it may satisfy if you approach it as an action-packed B-movie.  There are actually three specific things I find most redeeming about the film:  the opening title and logo screens (with the Universal logo flying around Mars, and the Doom title filling up the screen, it all looks and sounds fairly cool), the music (an awesome score by Clint Mansell, and one decent NIN song), and the last 13 minutes.  Within the last act, the film contains one of the awesomest action scenes I know of;  a six-minute sequence filmed entirely as a POV shot, made to replicate the exact look and style of an FPS game.  Those six minutes crams in more awesome stuff than the rest of the movie, and is worth a look on its own.  Afterward, the film pulls out an interesting plot twist that really challenges the moral stances of the characters, and digs up a few key themes regarding the "demon" within the human spirit.  Unfortunately, such themes are buried knee-deep in the bodies of so many other ideas that have been brutally shot up and mutated beyond recognition.

Aside from the ever-awesome FPS scene, the film looks bland and ugly, with standard (rarely great) photography and editing.  Most scenes appear dark and drab.  Acting is pretty mixed:  I generally enjoyed Dwayne Johnson and Karl Urban in their roles, but I didn't care for the others (not even Rosamund Pike, who also contributed to the blandness of the entire cast).  All the soldier characters do their best to add some serious machismo to the mix, but it can be quite over-the-top at times.  Writing is pretty bad, especially with so many lame game-related lines thrown in (I seriously don't need The Rock to shout out "Game on!" and "BFG, big f***ing gun!" to understand that this movie was based on a game.  Ugh).  This production uses some okay-looking sets, props, costumes, special effects, and make-up effects, but the designs bear little in common with the original games, further obliterating any connection to the source material.  As mentioned before, the music is really great.

Doom, the film, is passable as a glorified B-movie, on a level not too far off from an Uwe Boll picture (would probably make an okay double-feature with the god-awful Alone in the Dark).  Unfortunately, for a game series that had such a deep impact on the gaming industry and on our culture, this is not the movie that Doom deserves.

Not recommended.  Look up the movie's FPS scene on youtube, and play the games, instead.

2.5/5 (Entertainment:  Average | Story:  Poor | Film:  Poor)