Stars: The Rock, Karl Urban, Rosamund Pike, Ben Daniels, Dhobi Oparei

Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak

Summary: In the not-so-distant future, a portal has been discovered leading from Earth to Mars, where the government operates a research base to examine the ruins of a lost civilisation; scientists are studying it, conducting experiments they perhaps shouldn't be, and trying find out what happened. Answer: nothing good. That's what Sarge (The Rock) and his unit of high-tech Marines find out the hard way when they're sent to investigate a disturbance on the base which turns out to be nothing less than an infestation of terrifying, evil, flesh-eating monsters. DOOM, based on one of the most popular video games of all time, knows exactly what it wants to do, and wastes no time in doing it. Andrzej Bartkowiak, the director of lean, effective action flicks like ROMEO MUST DIE and EXIT WOUNDS, gets right to the meat of the movie: marines versus monsters in dark, dank corridors. The Rock brings just the right balance of bad-ass attitude and deadpan humour to the role of Sarge, while the cast's other standout is Reaper (LORD OF THE RINGS' Karl Urban), who tries to repair his strained relationship with his sister Samantha (Rosamund Pike), one of the base's scientists. They're joined by a motley crew, including the twisted Portman, intensely religious Goat, affable Duke, and newbie The Kid. While the plot differs from that of the game in a few key ways, it remains true to the spirit of the original a no-frills fest of shooting, explosions, gore, and vicious zombies. The game was, of course, a first-person shooter, and in an inspired moment, the movie turns itself into one for a stretch. It's exhilarating, as are several surprising twists that separate this fun, streamlined action extravaganza from lesser video game adaptations.

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Grab your BFG and get ready to kick some Martian-demon butt in Doom, another entry in the increasingly crowded videogame-to-movie genre. The Rock plays Sarge, the commander of a squad of Marines sent to investigate a disturbance at a scientific research facility on Mars. Among the squad is John Grimm (Karl Urban, who played Eomer in The Lord of the Rings), who turns out to have had a previous relationship with Samantha (Rosamund Pike, Die Another Day), the scientist who's accompanying the Marines in order to retrieve some vital data from the facility.

Based on id Software's legendary first-person shooter, Doom tries its best to look like a game, with dark, angled corridors, ferocious creatures appearing out of nowhere, and a variety of lethal weapons that will, like the aforementioned BFG, warm the cockles of a gamer's heart. There's also one memorable sequence that actually turns the movie into a first-person shooter; the good news is that in the context of the whole film, it's not quite as goofy as it might have been.

And that's not a bad frame of reference for the film in general. Considering the game-to-movie field includes such duds as Wing Commander, if you go into Doom with low expectations, you'll probably find it a surprisingly respectable horror/sci-fi thriller in the Resident Evil vein (including its somewhat obligatory subplot of corporate wrongdoing). Also in its favor is that it's unabashedly R-rated, for the extreme gore that is a trademark of the game. After all, the purpose of the movie is to pack scares and thrills into a setting that gamers will quickly recognize. In that sense, it qualifies as a success. --David Horiuchi

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Year:	2005
Release Date:	February 2, 2009
Runtime:	116 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	8239009
Keywords:	General, Fiction, Doom, Science, Horror, Sci, Fi
Genre:	Science Fiction