Doomsday - Unrated

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After creating "Dog Soldiers" and the mesmerizing horror bonanza"The Descent," writer/director Neil Marshall has built up quite animpressive reservoir of good faith with both fans and critics. He'sa smart filmmaker; a fresh talent working the levers on genres thatneed every ounce of intelligence they can possibly vacuum up.However, "Doomsday" is a misfire for Marshall; a vivid productiongiving him a plump budget to pursue his deepest widescreen dreams,yet he loses control of this violent free-for-all immediately aftertakeoff.
When the Reaper virus rears its ugly head in 2008, it threatens towipe out Scotland, forcing government officials to do theunthinkable: wall off the country to isolate the infected. 25 yearslater, the virus has returned, and the secret of a potential cureis locked away in the quarantined country now populated with thetattooed and cannibalistic dregs of humanity. Wasting no time, thecops (led by Bob Hoskins) look to Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) andher band of military specialists to penetrate a makeshift city andrecover a cure from gang leader Kane (Malcolm McDowell) before theReaper has a second chance to wipe the population off the planet.
If the plot sounds like a job for Snake Plissken, you're not faroff. Apparently Marshall was munching on a serious dosage of"Escape from New York" pills when manufacturing "Doomsday,"resulting in not only a comatose actioner, but a derivative one aswell.
Frankly, the entire first act is devoted to the sights and soundsof John Carpenter; Marshall unapologetically steals every cue hecan to make the picture resemble a creation from 1981, evenemploying composer Tyler Bates to replicate legendary synth beatsand electro-stings. It's not passive idolatry as much as it'sexasperating thievery. Robert Rodriguez had far more interestingfun with Carpenter-love in last year's "Planet Terror," butMarshall simply replicates his favorite scenes from "Escape," onlynow the action is blurred by trendy edit-happy action formationsand the gore is unrelentingly hostile instead of amusing.
Cracks in the foundation show up immediately in "Doomsday,"particularly in the casting of Mitra as the resident badass, EdenSinclair. Mitra is impossibly beautiful, but she's also impossiblybland: a personality-free anti-hero who's left hanging byMarshall's remote screenplay, which doesn't have time or patienceto develop any character. It leaves the picture a goulash ofhighly-caloric emptiness, with Marshall preferring a sensorialassault over any form of dramatic interaction. He's making a dumb'80's action sideshow, yet, in his quest for excess, he's lost anypotential, and quite critical, focal points along the way.
Let's face it: Eden Sinclair is no Snake Plissken, even whenMarshall bestows his heroine with an eye-patch in early scenes,along with a constant influx of one-liners, albeit witheredretorts. Marshall pushes hard, but it just doesn't feel as naturalas he's hoping.
Because "Doomsday" appears to come from the place in Marshall'sbrain that encourages mediocrity, the picture somehow moves from"Escape from New York" to "Lord of the Rings" in the second half,where Sinclair tracks Kane to a touristy Scottish medieval castle,where the villain lords over his horsemen and gladiators with aniron fist. The tonal change isn't out of the blue since, by thispoint, Marshall's exhausting ADD has been firmly established.However, that doesn't excuse how goofy the movie becomes in thisknights-and-arrows section of the film, amplifying the disconnectbetween what Marshall thinks is a bloody good show and whatnonsense is actually happening onscreen.
For the last two reels of "Doomsday," the mood switches yet again,and the finale is a straight-up "Mad Max" pinch, only here theaction is scored to a Frankie Goes to Hollywood tune (no, I'm notkidding) and the car gymnastics feel more like a cruddy theme parkstunt show than an exhilarating, gleefully ludicrous pyrotechnicorchestration. Here, "Doomsday" falls completely apart, lost in apoisonous cloud of indulgence and bewilderment.