Doom

Honestly, what more could one want from a movie like Doom? I mean come on, it’s a video game plot, essentially consisting of one dude wandering around hallways and shooting at aliens. So that’s basically what you get in the movie, although the filmmakers do endeavor to add a tad more plot depth by throwing in their take on the theory of evolution. Fantastic.

The year is 2026, and archaeologists have discovered an ancient portal from Earth to Mars, conveniently located in the deserts of New Mexico, USA. Some unknown and long-dead civilization supposedly constructed it, so scientists have rushed headlong into building a station on Mars where they can test weapons and the like, figuring they’ll worry about whatever caused the previous civilization’s demise later. Predictably, however, the researchers discover something evil and are gruesomely attacked and killed, blah blah blah. In comes Sarge (The Rock) and his elite team of marines, who are ordered to assess and contain the situation, recover all government property, and protect the civilians. The audience is given a quick but thorough introduction to the members of the team, which means we learn their names and one standard defining personality trait for each. Once that is all out of the way and they are transported to the Mars station, the gun fighting can commence.

Aside from Sarge, only one other marine, Reaper (Karl Urban), is given further “character development” when we learn that he has a twin sister, Samantha (that one Bond chick from Die Another Day), who works at the station as an archaeologist—which is apparently interchangeable with being a molecular geneticist in this film. Reaper hasn’t spoken to Samantha in ages, however, because she had the audacity to, um, work at the facility in which their father was tragically killed many years ago. Unforgivable, that. Nevertheless, terrible monsters are attacking people and threatening to break through the containment area back to Earth, so the movie has more important things with which to concern itself than character development. For the remainder of the movie then, The Rock and his team of marines wander through the facility killing monsters and sometimes getting killed themselves, while Samantha tries to determine from where these creatures came. All she has to work with are the bones of some murdered humanoid beings that had been found on Mars, who helpfully died in a defensive posture in order to show that they were about to be attacked... But then they obviously weren’t...like...killed by that attacker then (as Samantha claims was their fate) if their remains were found still holding a shielded posture. Right? I gave up on this logistical puzzle exercise after a few minutes and reminded myself that I was watching Doom, as opposed to the History Channel.

It turns out that the monsters were the scientists all along. (!) They had apparently been infected with a 24th chromosome—the addition of which, scientifically speaking, gives one super strength/speed/healing powers. And uh, also makes you into a monster thing. My favorite part came in a wonderful moment of glory, when Samantha (the intrepid archaeologist/molecular geneticist, Ph.D.) poses her alternate theory of the origin of species. Suck it, Darwin!

The movie features many visual similarities to the game, with numerous dark hallways, monsters, and a brief sequence from the 1st person perspective, which was when the movie abandons all pretense and just plays the game for the audience. I really liked Doom, however, because it had reasonably decent dialogue, a simple purpose, and exciting sequences of events. Silly, perhaps, but very fun.