Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Writer: David Callaham, Wesley Strick (Screenplay)
Starring: Karl Urban, Roasmund Pike, Dwayne Johnson, Deobia Oparei, Ben Daniels, Razaaq Adoti, Dexter Fletcher
Plot: Space Marines are sent to investigate strange events at a research facility on Mars but find themselves at the mercy of genetically enhanced killing machines.
Tagline – Hell Breaks Loose
Runtime: 1 Hour 45 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Fun Action Horror
Story: Doom starts when an incident occurs on a Mars research facility in Olduvai a Rapid Response Tactical Squad (RRTS) led by Sarge (Johnson) and his team John Grimm ‘Reaper’ (Urban), Destroyer (Oparei), Goat (Daniels), Duke (Adoti), Portman (Brake), The Kid (Weaver) and Mac (Chin) are sent from Earth through the Arc to the facility for a quarantine tactical search of the facility.
The team is joined by John’s sister Samantha (Pike) who is assigned to collect research information and we are ready to get the teams off in pairs to search the facility for any threats and they find plenty.
Thoughts on Doom
Characters – John Grimm has suffered an incident back on Earth, which does give his acceptance for leave before the latest mission, he refuses knowing his sister could be one of the victims and while everything unfolds he tries to rebuild his relationship with his sister. The biggest thing John lacks is anything about his character, he is too straight laced, compared to most of the others having some flaw about them. Samantha is his sister who works at the facility following in the footsteps of their parents, she does find small answers about what is happening being the only scientist amongst the characters. Sarge is running the operation, he follows orders, trusts his men and will do whatever the mission states, even if it means leaving dead bodies behind. The rest of the soldiers fill the basic roles required, the rookie, the talker, the religious, the aggressive and strong silent type, they have their moments.
Performances – Karl Urban might have put himself on the map as an action star in this role, he fills the honest solider effortlessly, Rosamund Pike is great too bringing the intelligence required for the role and Dwayne Johnson brings a character you wouldn’t normally see from him to life too.
Story – The story follows a group of specialist soldiers that must travel to Mars to figure out what happened in a facility which has seen the people there come under attack, as they must learn the secrets of the base. This does end up being a pretty routine story and while it is based on a video game, the story doesn’t need to be overly deep, it is just a simple search and destroy mission which does what is required, with generic character and that one scene that plays all the respect the game needs. We can easily point out the flaws and lack of development behind the Grimm character, but in the end we get a story that entertains from start to finish even if it isn’t the most original.
Action/Fantasy/Horror/Sci-Fi – The action side of the film is plenty of mindless shooting, but it is the corridor first person sequence that does save this from being too average, with the horror being the creatures being created from the sci-fi world the humans aren’t used to being around.
Settings – The settings are mostly kept in darkness which would be used to keep the creatures in the shadows and add into the fact that we don’t know what is going to be around each corner.
Special Effects – The effects when it comes to the creatures are strong, while certain CGI moments come off weaker, the rest if right up there for what we are looking to see.
Scene of the Movie – First Person Shooting.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – It does feel like there is more to John’s character.
Final Thoughts – This is a fun action sci-fi film, it isn’t going to win any awards, but it knows how to keep everything simple and the blood flying.
Overall: Simple and enjoyable.
