Two New DOOMSDAY Reviews For You!

Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. This breaks my heart a little bit. I like Neil Marshall. I don’t think he’s made a “great” film yet, but his genre work is spirited and impressive, and he seems to have near-boundless enthusiasm for the films he makes. I’m looking forward to DOOMSDAY, fingers crossed, and I hope it’s the next step in a promising career and not a stumble. This first review, though... sheeeeeesh...

Weirzbowski here, with some unfortunate news – Neil Marshall’s Doomsday is a bust. For those who wish to read on, I will offer my thoughts on why, without traveling into spoiler territory. I caught it in Burbank tonight. I am a huge genre fan. Escape From New York, Aliens (duh), The Warriors, Mad Max – these films all share the status of classics – and I love them. They are also the films that Neil Marshall begs, barrows and steals from for his new movie. I “get it,” this is supposed to be the ultimate homage to 80’s classic action movies. Like a nerds wet dream, wet get all of these films in one package! Sad thing is, Doomsday never becomes more than the sum of its parts, which is a nice way of saying it is pastiche without adding anything interesting or new. In fact, this was probably the most schizophrenic movie I have seen in some time. If someone leaves for the restroom, then comes back, they may question if they walked into the right theater. These stylistic changes didn’t bother me in concept, but rather execution. There’s really no reason for it all, except that it obviously seemed like a cool idea (it isn’t). I was lukewarm with Dog Soldiers, but loved The Descent. In other words, I was prepared to at least enjoy this film. However, there are so many inconsistencies, so many continuity errors, so many weird pacing problems, and such a poor and derivative story, that I was unable to even enjoy the ludicrousness of it all. Things started out promising, with Malcolm McDowell’s trusty voiceover to set the mood (not to worry, he is later horribly wasted). Everything went downhill pretty fast from there. What we get is a collection of loosely connected action scenes, executed to varying degrees of success (from poor to passable), laughable and illogical plot twists, and cheap looking production design. In fact, the whole affair screamed “straight to DVD” to me. This saddens me to no end. I was looking forward to this. I will say that the music and effects were temp. I heard the score from Batman Begins, Aliens and The Rock most prominently. Unfortunately, better music and effects aren’t going to save this one. I can’t say that editing will help either, because there isn’t much to work with (who needs characters anyway?). I see what Neil Marshall was trying to do. He meant well. He got the gore right. That felt 80’s and fun. Sadly, everything else was done better in the movies his paying tribute to. I would suggest going and watching those again instead. I still look forward to Neil’s future work, as this is just a misstep in what I hope will be a long career. Weirzbowski out.

And that guy actually sounds like he was really looking forward to the film. This next guy, though, seems to have liked almost everything the other guy didn’t. Does that make him a plant? Or is he just reacting in a different way? You be the judge...

Hey Harry, long time listener, first time caller. I figured I would write in because I got a chance to see DOOMSDAY last night. (I love Neil Marshall and thought Descent was awesome.) The music was temp and so were the effects I think. Doomsday is clearly an homage to Mad Max, Escape from NY and a little bit Aliens too (when I saw Dog Soldiers and The Descent I got a clear feeling of the kinds of movies that inspire Marshall.) It was a fun, bloody, action filled return to movies that are ... awesome. With so much crap out there it felt great to watch a movie that reminded me of the first time I saw Robocop, Total Recall, Escape From New York and Road Warrior. Here's a quick review and a longer review. Beware spoilers: Quick Review: Badass hot chick. Crazy Mad Max style cannibals. Medeival Malcom McDowell. Blood. Gore. Blood and gore. And Bob Hoskins too. Longer Review: The movie starts off with a killer virus that takes over Scotland, infecting the entire country. To prevent the virus from spreading, the government builds a WALL around the entire country, basically shutting if off from the rest of world – leaving everyone to die. Before the wall closes we see a little girl escape in a military helicopter, her EYE gets badly injured in the process. THEN we cut to the future London (like 2030 or something). London is now a brutal, crime ridden city with a military style police force. One of the bad ass officers is a hot looking actress named Rhona Mitra. Her character name is Sinclair and she has this cool fake eye (now a mechanical implant device), so we know that she was the little girl who escaped Scotland in the opening. When we pick up on her, she is on this mission to take down a kingpin criminal. There's a pretty badass action scene where we see a naked chick in a bathtub (yes, Tits and a Shotgun - verryy nicceeee) and Sinclair ends up taking down the criminal. Lots of nice action and blood and gore. From there, we cut to the Prime Minister of the future UK who reveals that the virus that was in Scotland years ago has appeared again, now in London. Turns out that if they don't find a cure, then the government will shut off London from the rest of the world just like they did to Scotland. Evil bastards. Further, it turns out there might be a cure back in Scotland where top secret data has revealed that people are actually alive and well behind the wall. (The last known person who might know of a cure was a Scientist named Kane (Malcolm McDowell). His work might still be in Glasgow somewhere. Now it's up to a badass team to go into the former Hot Zone of walled off Scotland and find the cure. They have 48 hours to do so. The badass to lead them is Sinclair...And this is where the movie gets awesome ... Sinclair takes the team into Scotland and finds that a maniacal tribe of humans have survived the virus. Picture the people from the world of Mad Max with hotter chicks and cannibalism. The leader of this bunch is a lunatic named Sol who sports a blonde mohawk and bit of an anger management problem. There is kick ass battle between the team and the tribe, which leads to a completely new adventure deeper into Scotland once they barely make their escape. We end up in an even more messed up part of Scotland that has reverted to being medieval. This leads to a crazy Malcolm McDowell doing Colonel Kurtz, a kick ass car chase with several explosions and a decapitation, and Rhona Mitra gets hotter and hotter as she sweats and battles through it all. It definitely needs some more editing (I want to see how the actual score ends up) but it is really solid. I do think that Neil Marshall is going to be a top guy after this. Lets hope he keeps delivering the good stuff. If you post this call me MORDRED.