Review of Doom (2005) by Thequietgamer — 30 Jun 2016

It actually has surprisingly little to do with the video game(s) it's supposedly based on. It trades the demons in for mutants and lone wolf protagonist for a team of space marines. The only similarities are that it takes place on mars in a facility visually reminiscent of Doom 3. To be honest it has more in common with Aliens.

Does any of this make it a bad film? No, not really. I mean, don't get me wrong, this is far from the most intelligent sci-fi movie there. It's definitely filled to the brim with cheese at times, but I still found myself having a lot of fun with this campy, action-horror flick.

Admittedly it's not that hard to think that we could've had a pretty great Aliens rip-off had the doubled down more on the horror and left the cheesier moments out. In typical video game movie fashion we get elements thrown in meant specifically for the teenage gaming crowd.

There's a scene of gratuitous nudity and the dialog is far from Shakespearean. Mix that in with moments of intentionally goofy humor and you have a movie that doesn't always take itself seriously. There's also Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's super over-the-top performance. However when it's firing on all cylinders and focusing on the great cast shooting up monsters in dark corridors it's hard to not enjoy yourself.

The action itself is mostly well done. It gets a little too over-the-top at times with the way it occasionally sends it's character careening through the air in an unintentionally comical fashion, but it's suitably gory and can get pretty tense in that special action movie way. There's a sequence in the movie that takes place in first-person as a throwback to the games that's just awesome.

While an extra dose of seriousness would have gone a long way, Doom is a pretty great movie. While the actual plot has little to do with the games, there are enough references to satisfy fans. Saying it's not as terrible as other video game movies isn't really saying much. However even when viewed outside of the video game movie spectrum it's still pretty great in it's own ways. The horror angle, while underutilized, did help give it a more serious tone to keep viewers invested longer. Not to mention it's got great action and a (mostly) stellar cast. Video game movies are rarely worth watching, but this one proves to be one of those rare exceptions to the rule. So long as you can put up with some camp and cheese that is.