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Doomsday (Neil Marshall)
"Mad Max....On Steroids"
Yet another film that deals with a virus that kills humanity, well, actually it's just Scotland. A wall is build around the island to contain the virus. Years later it is discovered that there are still people alive within the walls. Thinking there is a cure, a team goes back to retrieve it.
I've been fan of Marshall since Dog Soldiers. He manges to take an old and tired genre and create something new and exciting out of it. He continue this with The Descent. That film turned out to be one of the scariest films of recent years. Now Marshall has a bigger budget and a more ambitious project. Doomsday is Marshall throwback to cheesy 80's action films. So much that the film itself doesn't feel original at all. Well, it isn't, but it is sure as hell a fun entertaining ride.
Doomsday basically takes all the ingredients from campy action films and throws it in a blender. The two most obvious influences are Mad Max and Escape From New York. The lead character even has an eye patch to boot. You can call it a rip-of or a homage, either way it is a fun film. You really can't take anything seriously, you just sit back and enjoy the popcorn film as it is. If you do this, I guarantee you'll have a good time.
The lead actress, who looks almost exactly like Selena from the Underworld films, plays our heroine. Just the right amount of tough stuff needed to get through this journey. In a list of badass female heroes, Rhona Mitra's Sinclair would make the list. Along side characters like Ellen Ripley and Betrix Kiddo. The acting from the supporting characters, including one Bob Hoskins, and the lead herself are decent. The villains do a lot of screaming and looking freaky. A nod has to be given to the make-up and costume designs. Everyone looks like they are straight out of a Mad Max film, complete with custom made death vehicles and super hot tattoos. Well, at least on one female character, who gets way too little screen time.
The film manages to balance a wide variety of genre pretty well, including medieval times. While the castle and horses bit of the film is where it begins to lose some steam, it doesn't ruin the film. At first it may seem out of place, but then you realise that this is a new world that has been created an it fits nicely. The film goes between the Mad Max, medieval and virus spreading genres a few times and it may feel like you're watching completely different films, but that uniquely adds to the fun.
The film is quite gory, more so then I thought it would be. I should have expected it to be though, considering in Marshall's earlier films he has soldiers duct-taping their guts back into their stomaches. This gore adds a horror element to it. We aren't use to seeing all this blood and guts in films other then horror. It adds a another level of enjoyment to Doomsday. That' if you're into that sort of thing.
In my books, Marshall is 3/3, in terms of quality and entertainment. He's shown us he can scare us and entertain us. I had my doubts about this film, thinking the bigger budget would ruin Marshall's film-making style. I was wrong. It's Marshall's talent that makes Doomsday stick out from the other virus infected films and it's that talent that makes him a director to watch for the years to come.
I mean honestly, how many films can you see a decapitated head screaming while flying towards and hitting the camera???
"Mad Max....On Steroids"
Yet another film that deals with a virus that kills humanity, well, actually it's just Scotland. A wall is build around the island to contain the virus. Years later it is discovered that there are still people alive within the walls. Thinking there is a cure, a team goes back to retrieve it.
I've been fan of Marshall since Dog Soldiers. He manges to take an old and tired genre and create something new and exciting out of it. He continue this with The Descent. That film turned out to be one of the scariest films of recent years. Now Marshall has a bigger budget and a more ambitious project. Doomsday is Marshall throwback to cheesy 80's action films. So much that the film itself doesn't feel original at all. Well, it isn't, but it is sure as hell a fun entertaining ride.
Doomsday basically takes all the ingredients from campy action films and throws it in a blender. The two most obvious influences are Mad Max and Escape From New York. The lead character even has an eye patch to boot. You can call it a rip-of or a homage, either way it is a fun film. You really can't take anything seriously, you just sit back and enjoy the popcorn film as it is. If you do this, I guarantee you'll have a good time.
The lead actress, who looks almost exactly like Selena from the Underworld films, plays our heroine. Just the right amount of tough stuff needed to get through this journey. In a list of badass female heroes, Rhona Mitra's Sinclair would make the list. Along side characters like Ellen Ripley and Betrix Kiddo. The acting from the supporting characters, including one Bob Hoskins, and the lead herself are decent. The villains do a lot of screaming and looking freaky. A nod has to be given to the make-up and costume designs. Everyone looks like they are straight out of a Mad Max film, complete with custom made death vehicles and super hot tattoos. Well, at least on one female character, who gets way too little screen time.
The film manages to balance a wide variety of genre pretty well, including medieval times. While the castle and horses bit of the film is where it begins to lose some steam, it doesn't ruin the film. At first it may seem out of place, but then you realise that this is a new world that has been created an it fits nicely. The film goes between the Mad Max, medieval and virus spreading genres a few times and it may feel like you're watching completely different films, but that uniquely adds to the fun.
The film is quite gory, more so then I thought it would be. I should have expected it to be though, considering in Marshall's earlier films he has soldiers duct-taping their guts back into their stomaches. This gore adds a horror element to it. We aren't use to seeing all this blood and guts in films other then horror. It adds a another level of enjoyment to Doomsday. That' if you're into that sort of thing.
In my books, Marshall is 3/3, in terms of quality and entertainment. He's shown us he can scare us and entertain us. I had my doubts about this film, thinking the bigger budget would ruin Marshall's film-making style. I was wrong. It's Marshall's talent that makes Doomsday stick out from the other virus infected films and it's that talent that makes him a director to watch for the years to come.
I mean honestly, how many films can you see a decapitated head screaming while flying towards and hitting the camera???