Doomsday begins with the voice of Malcolm McDowell explaining how a virus broke out in Scotland and prompted the British government to wall the country up in an attempt to keep it from spreading. People were told that help would come but the government had no intention of sending any healthy people in. So Britain and the rest of the world turns its back on Scotland, letting the virus run its course and the people to die out. At least that's what everyone thought would happen. But when the virus turns up decades later in London, the British government reveals that there are survivors beyond the great wall and they may hold the key to the cure.
Rhona Mitra and Bob Hoskins in Doomsday (Rogue Pictures)
So Bill Nelson (Bob Hoskins) is asked by the government to send a team in to look for a doctor named Kane (Malcolm McDowell). So Nelson sends in Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) and a small squad. Of course the moment they get in they are attacked by gangs of punk survivors led by the rock star-like Sol (Craig Conway, who, a friend just reminded me, was one of the crawlers in The Descent ).
Doomsday is not based on a video game but its name and storyline could have easily come from one. The film marks a step down in intelligence for writer-director-editor Neil Marshall but a step up in terms of budget and visibility. This is a punkier big dumb action film in the vein of Live Free and Die Hard. But while Live Free Die Hard opted for a sanitized actioner where its hero's signature line Yippiekayay motherf-ker was censored out, Doomsday announces early on that its not for the squeamish or for those offended by gratuitous female T&A shots. Doomsday is what it is, a Dr. Frankenstein creation that steal parts from other films to assemble them into some new creation. Marshall, who revealed his love for the horror genre by referencing films such as The Evil Dead and An American Werewolf in London , doesn't mind taking what he needs from other films. In this case, it's actually fun to have him serve up Sinclair as a female version of Kurt Russell's Snake Pliskin from John Carpenter's Escape From New York. She even gets to lose an eye and wear an eye patch like him. The car stunts are taken right out of the Mad Max films, down to the guy strapped to the front grill of a car and a car crashing through a bus. And in addition to the film already mentioned, there's a medieval castle toward the end that smacks a little of Bruce Campbell and the Army of Darkness.
Doomsday imitating but not surpassin Road Warrior. (Rogue Pictures)
But what does all this borrowing and imitation get Marshall? Well he's not as clever at ripping off other films as Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg were in Shaun of the Dead , and he's not especially clever at shooting the action. Too much of the action is over cut so you can't tell what's going on. So what we end up with is a film that feels familiar in the way it references the genre and one that's tightly crafted. But it never makes the leap to being truly inspired. It's definitely a fun, mindless ride with an exceptionally high and bloody body count. He also delivers some striking images of the walled-in Scotland, and he doesn't waste time with lots of stupid plot exposition. The virus just comes and some people just survive. The closest we get to an explanation is when Kane says that they survived not with the help of science but with something more basic and potent - natural selection. Marshall strips the plot down to just its barest of essentials, which makes for a nice clean narrative trajectory. There's also an appealing pessimism to his story in which all three of the societies we see -- the official British government, Sol's punk survivial of the fittest, and Kane's medieval monarchy -- turn out to be based on fear, corruption and oppression. No utopias to be found as mankind just can't seem to get it right. &
Marshall shows some nice loyalty to the lesser known actors he cast in his earlier films and finds roles for The Descent's Nora-Jane Noone and MyAnna Buring, and for Dog Soldiers' Craig Conway, Chris Robson, Sean Pertwee, and Emma Cleasby. He also gives stunt woman Lee-Anne Liebenberg a chance to do her own stunts in a real supporting role. She plays the deadly Viper who boasts some cool Maori-like tattoos.
Lee-Anne Liebenberg as Viper (Rogue Pictures)
Doomsday (rated R for strong bloody violence, language and some sexual content/nudity) is not as good a film as I would have expected from Marshall but he doesn't completely abandon his brain in exchange for his bigger budget and more expensive toys. As he did in The Descent , he allows for a tough female lead that doesn't need a man to complete her and doesn't whimper when things don't go her way. Plus using the Fine Young Cannibals on a soundtrack for a film in which a prisoner is barbequed and served to the populace reveals a certain demented sense of humor onthe part of the filmmaker.
Companion viewing: The Descent, Dog Soldiers, 28 Days Later, Escape From New York, Road Warrior
