Recent Reviews
DVD Review: DOOM
By Dave Dreher
Feb 12, 2006, 18:57

I have to admit to you, going into the viewing of this film my expectations were not to high.  I had never really played the game, I had messed around with it a few times but quickly bored of it and expected as much from the film.

I was wrong. Doom was a pretty enjoyable ride.

The film wastes no time kicking things into high gear.  We quickly learn the facts about how and why our hero’s are in harms way and most of the film is a pretty tight, claustrophobic roller coaster ride. 

We meet up with The Rock and his Aliens style cast of characters as they are called to Mars to track down the cause of an SOS that has come in from a research faculty.  To get there they must use something called The Arc that is a Star Trek style of tele-porter that gets you from Earth to Mars in a blink of an eye.  Once there they of course run across mutated doctors, nurses, civilians, dogs, you name it.  The effects are first class and surprised the hell out of me, as did the graphic nature of the film.  The DVD is unrated and having not seen the film in theatres I don’t know how much added gore is here but this film is quite bloody and very very violent.  Ah yes…

I really enjoyed close to the end of the film where there is a sequence shot in the fashion in which the game was played.  You see the action first person with your gun out in front of you.  I remember seeing a short sequence of this action in a trailer or film clip and at the time thought it kind of lame but watching it full length and in the context of the entire film, I love it.  It works very well and in my opinion is one of the high points of the film.  I don’t want to ruin the viewing for you but there is one short scene during this segment that is just awesome and I have to tell you about it.  Remember, we are viewing the action first person with the gun directly in front of us.  If you ever played the game you should know what I am talking about.  A door opens and there stands a zombie with a hatchet raised above his head and ready to swing it at you.  The gun fires, removing the beasts hand, with the hatchet in it.  It spins in air a few times and lands in the zombies head killing it.  It happens very quickly but it is really quite awesome.

The climatic battle between the two main characters is over the top and fun.  The film drags a little in the mid section but it is necessary to set up the kick ass ending so it’s all good.

Once you’re through the film a look at the special features just adds to the goodness.  I really enjoyed the segment on the behind the scenes stuff with Stan Winston Studios and also the segment on how they filmed the fore mentioned first person shooter sequence.  The in-depth look at the FPS sequence is damn near worth the price of the disc in and of itself

Doom is available now and I give it a huge recommendation.  It is, in my opinion the best of the “video game to movie screen” adaptations yet.

I’m kind of surprised the film didn’t do better in the Cineplex once it got out there.  You would have thought that word of mouth would have gotten some asses in the seats.  I know that I am sorry now that I didn’t go check it out.  I would have like to have seen it on the large screen.

The films use of physical effects kicks this one a notch above the rest.  A great ride and a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

DOOM Rocks….

Buy Doom on DVD at Amazon.com