Doomsday is a patchwork quilt of concepts, ideas, depravities, and violences. Now, this is something that can possibly be pulled off in a manner that is interesting, but it requires a deft hand and a solid, central core that keeps all the disparate parts from coming apart at the seams and flying away in different directions. Doomsday doesn't have the latter, which leaves the movie without any real identity and instead moves from one scene to the other seemingly at random. Police-state outbreak thriller, spec-ops mission, post-apocalyptic empty city search, political doings, song-and-dance number with cannibalism, high-speed car chase action, medieval fantasy, and so on. A lot of parts.
Just for fun, I thought I'd list every movie I could think of that got referenced/ripped-off/nodded to:
-I am Legend
-28 Weeks Later
-Children of Men
-Planet of the Apes
-Road Warrior
-Armies of Darkness
-Lord of the Rings
And probably more than haven't come to mind just yet. But I've spent enough time on that, let's move on!
Characters...they're not really very interesting. Most characters exist to be killed or forgotten within a few minutes of their first appearance. Major Sinclair starts the movie as a cold, near-silent, emotionless action-hero and she ends it in pretty much the same way. Well, I take that back, she did shed a tear or two in a couple of scenes and she asked for cigarettes a total of three times. One review said that Major Sinclair came from the Ellen Ripley mold of movie heroines. Please excuse me while I LOL. The crazy mohawk guy was kind of interesting, but even he didn't do much aside from beat on protagonist when she was all tied up and provide the most unintentionally [?] hilarious scene in the movie. Malcolm McDowell acted menacing and bitter in a couple of scenes and then wandered off-set. Actually, that's what happened to most of the characters.
Story? Haha. Story. Let's move on.
Then the music. When it wasn't licensed stuff that's not really that great, it was just extremely loud. Okay, scratch that, ALL of the music was extremely loud. So loud that it drowned out just about everything else. I kept wanting to pause the movie, go into the menu, and turn the music volume down so I could hear what was going on. When the music's going, it just blares. A lot.
I laughed, I shook my head in disbelief, and then I laughed some more. Mostly I kept thinking of other movies that I'd rather be watching...man, I really want to watch Road Warrior right now. And, for some reason, The Warriors.
My conclusion? Well...it's ridiculous, nonsensical, poorly executed/written/acted, and any number of other negatives that you can throw at something that's a momentary flash of sparks and heat but with absolutely no substance. Should you go see it? I don't know the answer to that, only you do. Does everything I said sound like the perfect movie to you? If it does, go see it. At least you won't be surprised.
