Starring The Rock, Karl Urban, Rosamund Pike, Al Weaver, Dexter Fletcher, Raz Adoti, Ben Daniels
Written By: David Callaham, Wesley Strick
Directed By: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Studio: Universal
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More and more movies are being based on video games, and it doesn’t surprise me that one of the most popular first-person shooter games finally made it’s way to the big screen. I remember playing the first Doom game, but haven’t played the game since the first one. I’m not really sure if the storyline or characters are the same in the movie; but I can guarantee one thing, you’ll certainly be entertained with this movie.

Doom is about a rapid response military team, headed by the Sarge (The Rock), and they get a frantic call from an outpost from Mars. The team doesn’t know what to expect when they arrive at the research station. All research has stopped, communication has been lost and whatever messages they can retrieve, it’s not what they want to hear. John Grimm (Karl Urban) who is among the tactical squad has a sister, Samantha (Rosamund Pike) who’s a researcher on the station and he’s worried about her safety. He finds out she is ok, but the rest of the scientists aren’t. The team learns something strange is going on and things are happening that can’t be explained. People who were claimed to be dead are coming back to life, on top of other strange monsters & creatures are surfacing and causing havoc on the space station. It’s up to the military squad to eliminate the scary threat before it starts to spread through from planet to planet.

I didn’t know what to expect with the movie because I really didn’t hear any word of mouth or read any reviews of the movie. So I went in blind for a change and felt entertained afterwards and I guess that’s all that matters in the end. I’m a fan of the Rock’s movies and I don’t really have a problem with him. I think he’s a good actor and has a sense of charm to his characters. Well not in this movie since he plays a hard ass, who’s all about the military and not about saving people’s lives. Sort of a twist in the movie that I liked seeing. Having the Rock not be the all out good guy in the movie. I didn’t expect Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings, Bourne Supremacy) to get co-leading man status. Even though The Rock is billed as the star, Urban is just as much the lead character as the Rock is. The supporting actors are good as well. Or for the time they were in the movie. I kind of figured this movie was only going to have a few survivors.

The movie was gory in some spots, which I’m not used to since I try to avoid gory horror type flicks since i’m a big wimpy. When there was action, it was intense and exciting but at the same time it was also laughable. Seeing heads come clean off makes me laugh, but seeing people eating people’s necks and stomachs grosses me out! This movie was sort of a sci-fi zombie movie when you think about it. People did come back to life and eat on people. I like watching zombie movies because it freaks me out but i’m still fascinated by it. Then I regret watching them because then I end up having a million zombie nightmares. Pretty weird that I have so many. But anyway, I think the people that turned zombie were more scarier than the monsters & other creatures in the movie. I like how Stan Winston Studios did the monster effects and they weren’t all done in CGI. I thought the movie would have a lot of jump out of your seats moments but I didn’t get all that jumpy with this. I didn’t really care about the plot at all because I don’t think that was really the focus. The focus was showing how people got killed, and how cool it looked. The dialogue was also kind of laughable too, with people dropping f-bombs left and right. All that Doom was, was a exciting yet mindless action thriller.

I think this movie was created just so they could do the first person shooter sequence at the end of the movie. From the way it sounded when they were making this movie, I thought this was gonna be throughout the whole movie, not just one scene. But that one sequence was the best thing about the movie, it was just like watching some play a video game. Which it might be really cheesy to some people, but I thought it was fun to watch. I believe this is the first time someone put a first person sequence into a movie so that’s kind of cool.

I thought the bonus materials were good and showed you a lot even though each featurette was sort of short. Each featurette ranges from 4 minutes to 13 minutes (roughly). The first featurette showed the tactical squad actors getting hardcore gun training and I like watching actors go through training like that. A lot of the actors were blinking too much from the firepower and they had to keep doing it over and over again until they didn’t flinch or blink. The next extra was a short featurette about the Rock getting his makeup done. I always like watching those as well, and I can’t imagine sitting there that long and getting makeup done. Other featurettes include the making of the monsters & creatures for the movie, a documentary about the game Doom, the 5-minute uncut first person sequence as well as the making of that sequence. The bonus stuff is something to watch if you are really interested that sort of thing. I thought it was interesting.

Doom is a mindless sci-fi action/thriller movie in the same realm as Predator or Species. Go into the movie with an open mind and you’ll have a good time. Just have fun and watch a bunch of people get killed in a funny way or in a gruesome way. I enjoyed the movie and you might too.

Features:
First-Person Shooter Sequence:
Game On!:
Basic Training With The Rock:
Play the Doom 3 Game:
And Much More!

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1
SPANISH: Dolby Digital 5.1
FRENCH: Dolby Digital 5.1

Video:
Widescreen 2.35:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:
English, Spanish, French

Favorite Scenes: The first person shooter sequence was the best scene in the movie. The final fight between Grimm and someone else was fun too.
Rating: NR
Running Time: 113 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: