Doom

Review by Jason Gaston

I'm beginning to think that it's an impossible endeavor to translate a video game into an action movie event. So far, the best we've seen from the video game movies has been what I would classify as "decent", but nothing wonderful or memorable. Mortal Kombat is decent.

And that's about it, really. At least until now.

Doom, for example, is not a deep science fiction/horror movie but it's not the horrible pile of feces I was expecting it to be either. I like being surprised in the movies I go to and the fact that this film didn't completely stink has surprised the ever living hell out of me. Come to think of it, there are stretches of this movie that are actually a lot of fun if you don't mind losing a few brain cells to have that fun.

Based on the video game of the same name (obviously), Doom follows an elite team of commandos to a research station on Mars - yes, Mars - where something terrible has happened. There, they find out that some sort of experiment has gone awry an the legions of Hell itself are marching... on Mars.

But the legions of Hell haven't smelled what the Rock is cooking because he's on his way, he's got a gun that shoots holes into steel walls, and he's pissed.

As you can tell, trying to explain the story behind this cheerful opus is an exercise in futility. Most of the time, I had trouble just trying to figure out what was going on thanks to the thin plotting, but the plotting wasn't really the issue here anyway. Doom is a man's movie where there are horrible creatures, there is a lot of nasty violence, tons of death, and lots of things get blown up.

This ain't high art, kids. Not by a long shot.

Still, Doom is fun which is a lot more than I can say for its video game brethren. The story has some decent and unexpected turns that keeps it from becoming terrible and the action and enemy creatures are a treat to horror and action fans alike. Even the performances are a blast as the Rock plays an obsessive Sergeant and Karl Urban plays a soft-spoken but badass second banana.

Near the end, when a sufficient number of my brain cells had been slaughtered, I actually found myself smiling and giggling like a giddy schoolgirl during a hokey yet amusing first-person action shooter sequence and the final battle between hero and demon. I know that this is going to be a polarizing movie... or perhaps I'm simply in the small minority who dug this crazy flick, but I liked it. Gods of cinema help me, I actually liked it.

I can't help it. I cannot tell a lie. I liked Doom even though it might doom my reputation as a film critic.

At the very least, it's not horrible and in the world of video game movies, that is a victory in of itself.