Doom Movie. Wtf happened?

[Zemini]

If they took the Doom out of it it would of been just a watchable action-horror flick. The fact that it is called Doom without Demons/Hell is where the problem lies.

I will rewatch it again on the eve of Doom 2016's release for fun though.

[scifista42]

GoatLord said:

Am I the only one who thought the FPS sequence was extremely corny and felt more like a video of a haunted house attraction than a legit movie scene?

The FPS sequence was what I liked the most in the movie, and yet I didn't like the sequence that much. It fulfilled its purpose, but could have done so better.

[Koko Ricky]

I'm gonna be honest, I've only seen parts of the film, my judgements have come from reading about it and seeing clips, and understanding certain aspects of what (to me) makes for a good film. I think I'm going to actually watch it legit. I'm recovering from a minor injury and can't do much anyway until the middle of the week, I might as well check it out.

[Fonze]

Just don't get your hopes up for an ultimate Doom movie. I was a teen when it came out and I didn't like it; but I like The Rock and Karl Urban and the movie wasn't that bad if you can get over your own fandom for Doom (at least I obviously had to in order to like it). Just try not to remember this when you watch the movie:

[Maes]

I watched the movie once and I don't remember that scene, so I must be doing well(?)

[HorrorMovieRei]

That's from the sequel, which is based on Scythe 2's campaing.

[Fonze]

HorrorMovieGuy said:

That's from the sequel, which is based on Scythe 2's campaing.

Yeah after he activates the berserk pack.

[Koko Ricky]

So I watched it until my partner came home, which means I'm about one hour in. Just as a stand-alone film, it's a pretty embarrassing train wreck. It's far from the worst film I've seen, but I've cringed at least once every 5 minutes, it's that bad. I'm not even judging it as a Doom adaptation, it's just a piss poor movie so far. But I'm going to finish it tomorrow.

[dg93]

codeslicer said:

Okay, don't judge just yet.
Why don't we take a few moments and discuss the old 2005 film.

What the hell (or lack there of) happened?

Boring storyline, uneventful / lack of action scenes, and poor character development. That's why the film was utter shit.

[Koko Ricky]

Also, and keep in mind I'm just an hour in, the juvenile, forced sexuality is embarrassing, it was like a 14-year-old wrote the dialogue.

[Doom_Dude]

Forced sexuality.... I don't want to know what you're watching. haha.

[Koko Ricky]

The Doom movie, ya silly goose. There's a lot more forced sexuality in it than I expected. I'm not offended by it, I just find it really, really stupid.

[Voros]

The Doom movie took a "scientific approach".

The idea of Hell consisting of these multi colored, multi powered monstered would make viewers (especially those that didn't know Doom then) feel weird about the whole concept. While a virus attack made more sense by creating "multi mutations".

Plus, if that movie didn't exist, this wouldn't happen.

-Found a movie called Doom, became curious.
-Watched it and the credits, found out it was inspired from a game called "Doom"
-Googled Doom game
-DOOM!

[Doom_Dude]

I can't recall that in the film, tho it's been years since I watched it. I guess I'll have to re-watch it sometime soon. I do have a copy of the DVD from when Wal-Fart had it on sale for $5.

[Jaxxoon R]

Cyanosis said:

Jabroni detected.
http://atlantablackstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/hero_cast_full.jpg

TBH the Rock looks a lot like a Shotgunner in this pic.

[Splatter]

I liked the movie alright. It's way better than Doom 3.

[TheGamePhilosophe]

GoatLord said:

There's a lot more forced sexuality in it than I expected.

I think The Night Porter did that better.

[Avoozl]

The movie is probably better watched while drunk but even then it's just a waste of time. Movies based on games generally turn out bad and the Doom movie wasn't much of an exception to that.

[Koko Ricky]

I just finished the movie. Wow. Time to write a review. It's god-awful even as a standalone, non-canon work.

EDIT: Just posted my review. Writing reviews for bad movies is actually a lot of fun. This was a riot to type out.

[Koko Ricky]

Although the sub-genre is well into its second decade, it has yet to yield its first hit. Video game movies have, historically, been a lost cause for everyone involved. As a longtime fanboy of the "Doom" franchise, I desperately wanted this to be the example that broke the mold. When it failed to win audiences over, I avoided it for the longest time. Now, more than a decade after its release, it was time to finally get it over with. Throw away my preconceptions, even ignore the source material. Just watch and enjoy it as an action/sci-fi flick.

This didn't work, of course. There's no way for this film to be illuminated in a positive light; the best it could ever hope to be is to be a one-watch, mildly sub-adequate, disposable sampling of a type of movie that has seen better days. Using the tried-and-true formula established by "Alien" (1979) and "The Thing" (1982), "Doom" is centered around a cast that is slowly cut down by an evil force, until the most virtuous of the bunch inevitably prevails. Nothing wrong with that formula, but to be successful one must remember why it worked in the first place.

"Doom" takes a quarter hour to introduce us to the monsters, and in that time does very little to build up suspense or keep us remotely invested in anything going on. We are told in the first few seconds of the intro that scientists discovered (on Earth, for some reason) an ancient portal--codenamed "the Arc"--to an ancient Martian city. There's also the discovery of skeletal remains on Mars that are remarkably human in appearance, but contain an extra, 24th chromosome (humans have 23).

That actually sounds pretty compelling, right? Well, the Arc is a faster-than-light portal to the home of the United Aerospace Corporation, which is located on Mars, but is definitely not an ancient Martian city. Nowhere in the film do we see even the suggestion of a Martian city. Instead, we see a pitifully incompetent team of marines investigating dark corridors that, admittedly, look a whole lot like maps from Doom 3 and even the classic games. Why, there's even a scene in a bathroom! And fake walls! Hell, there's even a scene where a guy fires a BFG (called the "bio force gun" in the film, the same monicker I came up with as a kid) , although its effect resembles exploding toothpaste more than what I imagined concentrated plasma to behave like.

A pathetic group of marines is sent through the Arc to eradicate a mysterious threat in UAC's labs, which is systematically eliminating one scientist after another. Each of these marines is defined far too broadly for any of them to elicit sympathy. Dwayne Johnson, as Sarge, is the no-nonsense alpha male; Karl Urban, as John Grimm (ugh), is the chip-on-his-shoulder protagonist who looks vaguely like the Doom Guy. There's also a youthful screwup; a slick-haired pervert; a devout Christian; a horny black guy; a not-horny black guy that wants to be Duke from "Predator." They're a sad bunch and whenever one of them is slain, you feel nothing, because these characters bring nothing to the table. They're fractured takes on tiresome stereotypes.

The other characters are as easily dismissed, especially Grimm's sister, Samantha, a scientist who believes she can uncover what these monsters are and why humans are being affected. Once the big reveal is made, prepare for the eye roll of a lifetime. It's just not a satisfying explanation, and it's a mighty "fuck you" to one of Doom's most iconic elements: The presence of a hellish dimension. Why the Lovecraftian and Giger-esque elements were ignored is anyone's guess, but it's reasonable to assume that a mixture of science fiction and occultism was seen as too risky for contemporary audiences.

So you've got horrific writing, British actors who can't hid their accents, dizzying fluctuations in pacing, cringe-inducing attempts at humor, frequently lackluster set pieces, half-baked ideas that were bad on paper, inappropriate and often generic music that almost sort of sometimes comes close to resembling a mangled version of the original game's soundtrack... Well, at least the action is good, right? Not exactly. Every battle sequence is chopped up into dozens of one-second cuts, the only worthwhile shots being the few glimpses we get of the costumed monsters, which, for their credit, were great. There's an actual first person sequence at the tail end of the film, and even it is mostly lackluster. Again, you'll be waiting for shots of the monsters and not much else. There are, however, plenty of cheeseball shots of scientists acting like generic zombies and being riddled with bullets. Oh, happy day.

Clearly, "Doom" deserved better. The original game and even Doom 3 may have kept the plot to a minimum, but the potential for embellishment was there. The UAC, as a global conglomerate conducting strange experiments on off-world colonies, should have been explored further. The games' explanation of teleportation experiments gone wrong and opening up a portal to hell could have opened up a whole world of imagination for set design. Instead, we get a Z-Grade "Aliens" that fails on every possible level. Game over, man. Game over.

[lazygecko]

Mortal Kombat was one of the earliest game adaptations and also the one that broke the mold, and it did this by just confidently playing the whole thing straight with little to no executive meddling. There was a big article about the movie's development last year which I read. Gave lots of insight and just overall made the whole project appear like such a positive experience for everyone.

I think one of the most gleefully ironic things about Mortal Kombat is that it just straight up cast Asian-American actor Robin Shou as the defined main star of the movie (even when they had bigger names like Cristopher Lambert attached). It's known that to this very day Asian and Asian-American actors are among the most marginalized groups in Hollywood.
The irony comes from the Street Fighter movie which had been released shortly before, and that was a case of typical Hollywood whitewashing where Van Damme was the lead protagonist as Guile, and Ryu was relegated to being a side character. That movie flopped, while MK dominated the box office for several weeks.

[gemini09]

GoatLord said:

Clearly, "Doom" deserved better.

I feel the same way about the game but speaking for myself I have different expecations from the movie.

It's not necessarily made by fans. The rights were simply sold to a studio, and the studio just did their job. How good a job is already in debate - personally I like the movie but many actually hate it. However, seeing as it's the business of the movie studios to simply crank out movies, they're more focused on production and revenue than something artistic. The artistic concern lies not with the producers, but somebody involved in the production. Id Software should have been involved as the artistic lead in the production of the movie, but as I see it, they just simply handed everything over, without much if anything of guidance or guidelines for the producers.

But I am just speculating. I'd just say I'm more disappointed with Id Software for not putting down guidelines that the majority of the games' player-base would agree with, but at the same time, their own game DOOM 3 was more like the DOOM-movie than the old original games.

[Koko Ricky]

The movie might have done well if the writing and directing weren't complete shit, those two things hurt it the most.

[Chezza]

Nice review Goatlord. Although even if Doom was a shit movie, I don't share the harshness on the first person scene and I did like the Hellknight vs Generic Black Guy pit fight too.

I wish I could remember where I read this, it may very well be a link somewhere in Doom World but there is a theory the writer may have produced a rushed script that was nearly due, like a school student desperately trying to complete an essay for a subject he/she has no interest in. Apparently the writer got in direct contact with a known Doom fanboy and requested help for a few scenes for the sake of Doom consistency and referencing. In the end the ideas were somewhat stripped and partially added to the movie or something like that...

[Clonehunter]

[Chezza]

I quite liked the theory, I generally do like this sort of thinking when it comes to universes I love. I would have never thought this far in the Doom Movie but that's mostly due to the, as you say execution of it all being pretty poor (and the F U you the true Doom Hell element). That and Doom has never been strong in the story department. But the Marine conflicted with orders and choosing to do the right thing and paying a sort of good and bad price concept is a decent foundation for a potentially great story focused on the Marine's character development, albeit not the most original.

Anyhow, twas a good read.

[Doomkid]

I agree with Goatlord bigtime on that one. It seemed awesome when I was 14 but watching it again recently, it seemed like an early 90's horror scene or something. Way too much cheese, though it was necessary to have a POV scene - It just could have been done a lot more effectively.

If for some bizarre reason there is another Doom film, I hope they cast the marine as Nathan Fillion! That said, Karl was a pretty good choice.

[Koko Ricky]

I figure if the game does well it would open the doors for another movie. The original is so fucking terrible that a reboot could only be better. I think with the write director and writer it could be decent.

[snapshot]

That movie didn't feel like it was inspired by Doom at all, only the BFG and the FirstPerson scenes were ....

[Blastfrog]

I kinda like the movie, it has a strange charm to it. It's fun to watch as long as you don't take it seriously.