Review of Doomsday (2008) by Ar M — 12 Aug 2010

Doubtlessly inspired as much by Escape from New York as Mad Max, Doomsday is a diluted mocktail culmed from much stronger movies. In that it makes moviegoers pine for the often imitated but never duplicated originals, Doomsday rocks. There are a few key scenes in which writer/director Neil Marshall actually shows great promise beyond simply recycling classic adventure thrillers?namely the opening and closing titles. The rest of this ponderous muddled movie, however, more than offsets such moot potential.

In the R-rated adventure thriller Doomsday, an elite team of specialists (Mitra, Hoskins) are dropped into a walled-off Hot Zone in Scotland to find the cure for a pandemic set to spread throughout the U.K. Caught between two sets of survivors, a sect of cannibalistic punks and a retro-medieval community, the team finds themselves on a race to make it out alive.

Not only has John Q. Moviegoer seen the classics, he has recently seen better retreads (28 Days Later, Resident Evil). Mitra and Hoskins seemed game for a good thrill-ride?only their characters are so thinly drawn, they disappear when turning sideways. Until audiences realize that they could be home watching The Road Warrior, the Glasgow sequence (four words: flesh-eating Sex Pistols) actually bears some points of interest. Soon after, however, the captive.

Bottom line: Yabba dabba doodie.