"Doomsday" review

Doomsday (2008)

Director: Neil Marshall
Writer: Neil Marshall

Adeola Ariyo ... Nurse
Emma Cleasby ... Katherine Sinclair
Christine Tomlinson ... Young Eden Sinclair
Vernon Willemse ... David / Gimp
Nathan Wheatley ... Patient "X"
Rhona Mitra ... Maj. Eden Sinclair

The Reaper virus is sweeping across Great Britain. The authorities decide to set up a quarantine zone where the infected can die off at their leisure. Years later, the virus resurfaces to lay waste to the population again. This time the government does the responsible thing and sends a babe with big guns into the hot zone. She’s searching for the cure among the wastelands. She will have to be a Road Warrior while she Escapes from New York, I mean the hot zone. But she can’t wait 28 Days Later to run away. She needs to leave these Streets of Fire before the Warriors get her.The word that kept ringing in my brain after I finished watching “Doomsday” was “derivative”. Not only did I feel like I’d seen this movie before, I got the feeling I had seen this movie many times before in different forms. “Doomsday” goes beyond mere homage. This is out right highway robbery. The director took all of the 80’s movies that inspired him, threw them in the blender and gorged himself on this bloated cocktail of blood and guts.

It’s hard to love “Doomsday” as you know every action scene is lifted from a better movie. But if you’re a B-movie freak, it’s also hard not to get a kick out of all the slobbering love for extreme violence on display here. One mans excess can be another mans treasure.

There are certain movie rules I live by. Like any movie with a decapitation has to be good on some level. Heads and other important body parts fly all over “Doomsday”. There is plenty of gratuitous violence as the head babe, (Linda Hamilton, I mean Rhona Mitra), blasts her way through the wastelands looking for the cure. When she got to the castle and had to have a gladiator fight with a knight in shining armor, I almost lost my mind. The movie had gone far over the top at that point but still wasn’t satisfied until it squeezed in one more Mad Max style car chase.

Needless to say, I was pleased with “Doomsday”. Oh sure, it’s a complete rip-off of every single sci-fi action flick ever made. But it’s a fun one. If you’re looking for some brain dead action, “Doomsday” will serve you well.

SCORE: 3 out of 4 babes of the wasteland