| MEN ARE FROM MARS : Andrzej Bartkowiak's 'Doom' [5/10] |
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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WARNING : REVIEW CONTAINS (FAIRLY) MILD SPOILERS The video-game Doom revolutionised that particularly industry in 1993 - it "set the FPS world on fire and spawned multiplayer carnage" according to one website, which presumed that readers would be aware that FPS stands for 'First Person Shooter', whereby the player sees through the characters' eyes as he or she goes on a gun-blazing, chainsaw-happy kill-crazy rampage. 'He or she'? In Doom the movie - in which mid-21st-century marines are sent to Mars to investigate a mayhem-outbreak at a scientific research facility - there's no gender ambiguity: the hes do the shooting, the shes are scientists relegated to the sidelines, with only demure researcher Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike) getting anything like a proper role to play. This largely consists of looking scared and, on occasion, letting loose what must be one of the least convincing screams heard since the (deliberately) ropey yelp that kicked off Brian DePalma's Blow Out back in 1981. One presumes Pike didn't even bother going up for the Fay Wray role in the upcoming King Kong remake.The film's sex-roles stance is ironic, considering the video-game of Doom is itself a direct descendant of Alien and, especially, Aliens, in which Sigourney Weaver was invariably front-and-center. At least the Resident Evil movies - which actually owe more to zombie cinema - bother to foreground females, with Milla Jovovich dominating the franchise, supported by the ass-kicking likes of Michelle Rodriguez and Sienna Guillory. Doom, however, is very much big-boys-and-big-toys fare - war presented ("game time!") in sporting terms, and culminating in a glorified version of a WWF Smackdown. Which brings us to the biggest boy of all: The Rock as a character known only as 'Sarge'. Initially presented as the movie's square-jawed, valiantly fearless hero, Sarge is an unsmiling caricature of the only-obeying-orders uber-Marine who shoots first, second and third - and doesn't bother with the wussy business of "asking questions". His de facto 'number two' is John Grimm - Samantha's brother (this is, bizarrely, the second film in as many months to feature siblings with that surname) - played by Karl-Heinz 'Karl' Urban and saddled with the kind of conscience which seem so (ahem) alien to Sarge. They lead a gung-ho squad of foul-mouthed gung-ho squaddies (not one of whom smokes, mind you) into the bowels of an archeological dig where they encounter genetic mutations lurking down an endless, spatially-confusing series of dark corridors. The dig's location is named "Olduvai Gorge" while a skeletal proto-human discovered there is called "Lucy" - these cheeky references* to actual human paleontology will surely fly right over the heads of the movie's target audience, namely gore-hungry 13-year-old American boys. Any parents who happen to be accompanying them will surely spot the 'gags' - a bit of a hostage to fortune, considering how 'leakey' the plot turns out to be. Some incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo about missing 'xenogenesis' and extra chromosomes - very different from the demonic set-up of the original computer games, apparently - but fundamentally just an excuse for director Bartkowiak to string together effects-heavy set-pieces involving flying body-parts and endless gore. A former cinematographer - born as well as educated in Lodz, the hotbed of Polish cinema teaching - Bartkowiak has now made four features (this is, incidentally, his first without rapper/actor DMX). He's certainly progressed a deal since his awful debut Romeo Must Die, but would still be better served returning to the lesser-paid ranks of the 'DP': Doom is a perfunctory, oddly suspenseless and half-hearted affair, full of uninspiring monsters who mostly look like outsize men in cheapo rubber suits (scarcely more convincing than Nemesis from Resident Evil - Apocalypse). Clint Mansell, on his day one of the more noteworthy composers working in films (Requiem for a Dream) turns in a woefully sub-par nu-metallish score, the drabbest spell of which accompany Doom's most disappointing scene, a "first person shooter" sequence (some 83 minutes in) where we see events from Grimm's "P.O.V." It's five minutes long but seems to drag on forever as Grimm ploughs his way through a variety of ghoulies and nasties which loom out of the dark with all the menace of cardboard figures on a seaside Ghost Train. That said, there are flashes of interest here and there that keep the Prague-shot Doom watchable: one may detect a whiff of dangerous topicality when one grunt - ahem - grunts the line "I enlisted to serve my country - not to protect some goddamn corporation's science project!" Cut off the last two words, and we're veering close to Michael Moore territory. Even more interesting is the third-act development of the seemingly one-dimensional Sarge character: interesting, because he becomes much less sympathetic rather than more, losing his humanity long before he's infected with the xenogenesis thingummyjig. "Kill em all! Let God sort 'em out," he bellows, and if nothing else it's commendable that the scriptwriters have Sarge committing (off screen) the worst crimes imaginable - to the mounting horror of Grimm and company. Sarge is, they (and we) realise, the real monster here - and The Rock's decision to play this role rather than Grimm finally makes sense: critics who have criticised his performance for its lack of humour and/or camp really are missing the point in dramatic fashion. This is perhaps the last place where we'd expect to find such a mordant critique of the macho military mindset - a movie based on a game whose motto, according to one online fan, might as well be "brain off, chainsaw on" - but perhaps that very incongruity is what saves Doom from an otherwise sorry fate. Neil Young 30th November, 2005 DOOM : [5/10] : USA (US-Ger-Cz-UK) 2005 : Andrzej BARTKOWIAK : 105 mins (timed) seen at Odeon cinema, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK), 28th November 2005 - press show * fans of recent arthouse cinema may be bemused by the fact that the action proper begins near the town of Twentynine Palms, in the year 2046. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A rather different take on Doom is provided by the inimitable Screen It! parental-advise website, from which the following gems are extracted: All sorts of lethal and extremely bloody and/or gory violence is present (stemming from humans killing monsters and human zombies, and vice-versa) with some dismemberment, while some brutal fighting also occurs as does shooting of already dead bodies. Various wounds and dead monsters are grisly in appearance (including a graphic autopsy of the latter). Some bad attitudes are present (including a Marine who decides to kill the victims) as is some crude, scatological material. One character gives another some sort of drug that leaves the second one high, a character is estranged from his sister and haunted by some event from their past, and some potentially imitative behavior is also present. At least 25 "f" words (4 used with "mother"), 40 "s" words, 13 hells, 3 asses (1 used with "hole"), 3 damns, 3 S.O.B.s, 11 uses of "G-damn," 4 of "Oh my God," 2 each of "Jesus" and "Jesus Christ" and 1 use each of "Christ," "My God" and "Oh God." Phrases: "Where the f*ck are we?" "What the f*ck /is going on up here/happened/is that?" "BFG" (Big F*cking Gun), "You need to shut the f*ck up," "You're telling me there's more of those f*cking things?" "Why don't you go f*ck yourself?" "M*therf*cker," "Shut the f*cking door," "I'm taking a sh*t you f*cking gimp," "Semper Fi, m*therf*cker," "I don't believe this sh*t," "You're bullsh*tting me," "No sh*t," "Holy sh*t," "It's sh*t like that that gets under your skin," "Weird sh*t going on here," "Being in the sh*t," "Ah sh*t," "I don't see sh*t," "No sh*t," "Chickensh*t," "Scared sh*tless," "Hell no," "Shut up," "Fine looking piece of ass," "Where the hell is everybody?" "What the hell is that?" "You asshole," "Jeez," "BFG" (Big Force Gun), "He's so freaked," "I don't give a damn," "C'mon, you son of a bitch," "We're gonna need something with a little more kick," "I gotta take a dump," "Unless you want me sh*tting my pants right here," "If it breathes, kill it," "You dumb son of a bitch," "Blow this place to hell" and "Go to hell." Some non-explicit, sexually related dialogue is present, as is a life-size poster or cut-out of a scantly clad woman showing some partial nudity. Some men are seen shirtless and a possible, split-second, distant view of a bare breast on a dead body might be visible (or it could have been something else). |
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