DUUM: The Movie
Well, the Doom movie was finally released to a flood of hype. Having played every version of the game on, or soon after it's release date, There was no doubt about whether I would see the movie. I went in realizing that a movie about a lone marine rampaging through a space station would not have enough content to hold anyone's interest, so I expected that the writers would have to find a way to add additional marines. What I didn't expect was that they would rip out the original story, which was just a thin excuse to set up the carnage, and replace it with something far, far worse.
I'm not sure who they were aiming this movie at. Those who never played the game will find little to no redeeming value in the movie. The thought of scientists transforming themselves into demons as part of a science experiment is so over-used that it is pathetic. Non-gamers will be perfectly justfied calling this "Night of the Living Dorks" (apologies to George Romero). Fans of the game will dislike the stupid way they changed the plot. The 'demons from hell' plotline has been replaced by 'dorks with an extra chromosome'. Game fans will have no problem calling this movie DUUM. Jeez.
The action promised by the game was almost absent from the movie. As far as I could see, the marines pumped more ammo into piles of dead bodies than they shot at demons. They wasted so much time in a lame attempt to explain the existence of the vile creatures that they didn't bother to show more than a few of them in action.
In some ways, the movie was better than I expected. I went in thinking that the FPS sequence would be extremely stupid. I thought it would be annoying to gamers and incomprehensible to non-gamers. It was was actually the best part... I especially liked the scene where the zombie planted an axe in his own head. Unfortunately, it was also brief. It fell short of giving the true feel of the game, but at least it was entertaining.
In most ways, this movie was just plain bad. The special effects were pretty good, but not at the caliber of a good sci-fi movie. The horror scenes didn't spare the sensibilities of the audience... just like the game. However... dialog, acting and plot were far more likely to make you retch that the buckets of blood sloshed around the set.