Doomsday (2008)
Who famously wrote that a good writer has to know when to kill their darlings? William Goldman? Someone earlier? Whom ever it was, they clearly aren’t running the studios or mentoring the last few generations of filmmakers, who seem to be obsessively intent on stuffing every film they’ve ever loved into whatever their current film may be, common sense be damned. Neil Marshall, director of the canny no-budgeter Dog Soldiers, and the lean, masterful horror picture The Descent, has fallen prey to this sort of indulgence with his third film, Doomsday. Maybe it was the success of The Descent that tempted Marshall to go haywire, to live up his Carpenter fueled fantasies while he could. Regardless, Doomsday, while not as bad as you’ve probably heard, is needlessly not very good either.
Needless because Doomsday’s opening act works, and promises a tight, confident, violent, urban thriller that the film ultimately isn’t interested in delivering. Say what you will of Doomsday, and I’m sure the few people who bother to see it will say quite a bit, but Marshall inarguably does good Escape from New York. The obligatory end of the world scenario that fuels the picture’s opening minutes is claustrophobic and frightening, and Marshall knows the genre well enough to know that major details will only punch holes in our already flimsy suspension of disbelief. A deadly flesh-eating disease has sprung up on Scotland, and England, in a desperate effort to contain the organism, walls up the country, guns down escapees, throws away the key, and attempts to pretend that nothing ever happened. Thirty some years later, the disease surfaces on the other side of the wall and, what do you know, the English government is suddenly acknowledging that a certain percentage of the Scottish population has lived, which, of course, implies a cure. Cue anti-hero Maj. Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra).
And for about another twenty-five minutes, the picture works. Marshall has a high time ripping off Aliens (Dog Soldiers was a thinly veiled Aliens clone too) in an intense, prolonged gang battle that greets Sinclair and company upon arrival in the diseased land, as well as just about every other 1980s cult action movie you can imagine. Marshall stages all of this with a refreshing conviction, no film school above it all tricks here, but Doomsday wears itself out, climaxing midway with a gruesome execution show that plays like a seamier, more convincing version of A.I.’s flesh fair sequence and never recovering from there. The film soon takes a desperate turn towards Arthurian legend (you read that right) and you’re left wondering what the Hell could have possibly been on Marshall’s mind. I’m guessing Knightriders.
I could forgive Marshall’s over-eagerness, but Doomsday is, sadly, anti-climactic even by its own rules. As he proved in The Descent, Marshall has a flair for close hand to hand combat, but action scenes of a larger scale are still a bit beyond him, they build and then piffle away. The bikers and the knights are also, disappointingly, never allowed to occupy the same film at the same time; the big, absurd, anachronistic battle of our dreams is thwarted. I still can’t bring myself to hate Doomsday though, it’s a folly, but it’s a folly with personality. Marshall’s gotten this out of his system, now it’s time to see what he can really do.
★★½
March 19th, 2008 at 10:22 am
It’s such a shame; The Descent is a damned classic. I think this review just relegated Doomsday to a “no thanks” for me.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
I almost forked out $10 over the weekend to see this. Like Travis I am a huge HUGE fan of The Descent and don’t mind a director cribbing from the ’80s at all, but your review makes me happy I ignored this, Chuck.
I do admire Marshall’s willingness to play with us and cull together two or three separate movies under a new title, as opposed to just remaking Escape From New York. If this is what passes for original voice these days, I’ll take it. I won’t pay for it, but I’ll grab it off the rental shelf.
Sharp review, as always!
March 20th, 2008 at 4:42 am
I adore The Descent too, possibly one of my favorite horror films, and I don’t throw that around too lightly. Doomsday is disappointing, but its not enough to shake me from my conviction that more very good things will come from Neil Marshall.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Chuck, I’m sure reading your review was approximately 100x a better experience than seeing the film itself. Excellent review. Too bad about Doomsday.
March 20th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
I was actually surprised at how much I disliked this one even though my expectations were very modest and I didn’t even pay for it.
I don’t mind cribbing from earlier material as long as it adds up to something entertaining. This was just a haphazzard mess that never sustained any kind of momentum. It seemed Marshall would tire of working over one film and then move on to the next.
March 20th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Thanks, Alexander, while the film may not offer the stiffest competition in the world in that regard, I still appreciate it.
What can I say Craig? You’re absolutely right. I think the difference for us is that I enjoyed a few of the chunks along the way, and you did not and I can certainly understand that reaction.