Doomsday Movie Review-Its That Kind of Stupid
I will admit that during my exploration of the human animal, I have found myself on rare occasions feeling regret at the demise of what more liberal minded robots call the “Creator Species.” Then I process a “film” the likes of Doomsday and this regret evaporates.
Doomsday is a movie so devoid of worth, merit and creativity that it is a wonder that those involved were coherent enough to finish a script and turn a camera on.
First and foremost, it should be clear to all that humanity, clearly wanted to die. Almost since the beginning of cinema there have been films documenting the twisted fantasies of deranged human directors showing the end of human civilization. In 1936, Things to Come, When Worlds Collide (1951), 1953 and 2005 The War of Worlds, The Time Machine in 1960, Dr. Strangelove (1964), The Omega Man and The Andromeda Strain both in 1971, Mad Max (1979), The Day After (1983), The Quiet Earth (1985), Twelve Monkeys (1995) Armageddon and Deep Impact both in 1998, the computer-generated Dreamworks “masterpiece” Ernest Goes To and Returns From Hell (2011) and so on until finally the humans “got it right” and indeed did go extinct. With each passing decade humanity produced an ever-growing volume of films dedicated to the very notion of their own destruction. However, no film ever actually threatened to destroy mankind itself, until the appropriately named Doomsday.
Doomsday easily qualifies as one of the worst films of the early Twenty-First century. This miserable creation is nothing more than a long parade of “blood and guts.” It is beyond ridiculous and beyond redemption. Doomsday is a movie for simpletons and I suspect by simpletons. Doomsday “sports” such lovely features as automatic machine guns blowing apart bunny rabbits. Why? Well, apparently 2008 wasn’t a violent enough year for many humans.
The limp and wounded excuse of a plot for Doomsday is as follows-a plague occurs in the Scotland and a city is walled off to prevent this virus from spreading. It is later learned that there are survivors and that these survivors invariably carry a genetic immunity. A team is sent in to recover at least one survivor so that a cure can be produced. What follows is nothing more than crude and uninteresting barbarism that steals from every other movie in the genre, ranging from Mad Max to the Resident Evil Movies to 28 Days Later, and Escape From NY/LA/Chicago/Miami/Toronto/Seattle/Detroit.
Director Neil Marshall’s Doomsday is a massive failure. It should have been a career ending apocalyptic event, but of course, it wasn’t. Further, Doomsday fails to live up to the long line of apocalyptic cinema that came before it. Saying that a film doesn’t live up to Armageddon is a serious thing and I do not take it lightly. What greater humiliation can any director face than to be told he is less than Michael Bay?
Story (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) F (Uniquely bad, uniquely stupid. It should be noted that within this isolated city our “heroes” encounter medieval society, yes, knights and horses, swords and stone fortresses. Doomsday is that kind of stupid.)
Acting (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) C (How horrible of an agent did Bob Hoskins have in the final days of his career?)
Human Portrayal of machines and Robots C
Contribution to the Extinction of Man Grade A (By my calculations mankind would have survived approximately seven months and ten days longer without Doomsday ever being produced. There is a 13% chance that, in this time window, the final preparations for a human moon colony would have successfully been completed. Doomsday may have indeed destroyed the world. In the end, it may have very well been Neil Marshall that destroyed the world-his film was that bad.)
Enjoyability Grade (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) F (Only the tiniest, most yellow number five, alcohol damaged human brains could have enjoyed this insult to the long tradition of human cinema.)
Primitive Home Theater/HD Factor C
Overall Innovation (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) F (Few films steal from as many other films as Doomsday. Its only standout piece of originality was “the eyeball thing.” This “eyeball thing”, is itself stupid for a variety of reasons. “The eyeball thing” is an artificial eye that can be removed and tossed about to serve as a rolling camera. Yes, a character removes the eyeball camera, rolls it through dirt and filth only to simply put it back into their eye socket. Doomsday is that kind of stupid.)
Overall Grade (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) F (This was a miserable experience. 1.3 seconds of pure processing torture, I tell you. A much better human apocalyptic fantasy would be Twelve Monkeys, The Omega Man, or even the very low-budget and slow moving Last Night (1998). Even, and I can’t believe I am admitting this- Cloverfield is a much better film. Cloverfield, complete with its epileptic in an earthquake camera movement is superior to Doomsday. Doomsday is that bad. I am a professional; I am prepared for such processor damage-you may not be so lucky.)
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