Doom (2005)

[Scott]

DOOM (2005) - This film isn't bad. It's not great, but the whole space thing was neat. The gore effects were well done. The Rock did well and in the end you wanted him to die. Some parts of this space colony weren't really explained, but that was ok. The characters were also ok. It's like a mix between Alien, Shivers, and some kind of Zombie film. The ending goes game mode on us and kinda ruins any continuity that it may of had. Picked it up at that Circuit City sale last month.

  (7 out of 10 Stars) Catch it for free somewhere.

[Kester Pelagius]

Picked it up at that Circuit City sale last month.

That makes two of us.   

I wasn't expecting much out of this yet I was surprised at just how underwhelming this movie (plotwise) turned out to be.  I know, silly to look for story depth in a movie adaptation of a video game, but one can dream.

I thought the actors did rather well, despite the apparent lack of plot development, and it looked really great visually.  Otherwise Doom seemed like an 80s era style Alien knock-off.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, though it didn't really manage to bring anything new or interesting to the genre aside from good SFX.  I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel.

[Torgo]

One of the worst movies that I've ever had the misfortune of seeing.    

[CheezeFlixz]

I got this GEM last year at Blockbuster sidewalk sale for a $1.00 it's got to be worth at least that much. It's not bad, not great but it's watchable maybe once a year.

[Joe the Destroyer]

I got into a showing of this one free because a friend of mine used to work at the theater.  I expected it to completely and totally blow ass.  Thankfully, it was just a few steps above that, so it was worth it. A few of my friends have asked me when I'll add that to my collection, and I always say, "When it's in the $5.50 bin."

[Shadow]

Call me a stickler for details, but I would have enjoyed it a lot more if they had stuck with the game's explanation for all the monsters/demons.

[Andrew]

Oh, I have a previous viewing of this one too:

http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,112427.0.html

I think that The Rock's sudden transformation into a "kill them all" bad guy is what confused me the most.  For the low point of the film, it was discarding the entire gateway to Hell on Mars angle for something else. 

[Joe]

wasnt as bad as i thought it was gonna be. the " im gonna get me a bottle of tequila and a couple of she-boys and lock myself in a hotle room for a week" line made me ask myself if he really just f**kin said that and who the hell wrote this script (im still not sure if he really said it, i didnt bother going back once was enough). i thought the rock was going to turn into this badass monster but he didnt, i was fuzzy on the whole teleportation thing i didnt know when they were on mars and when they were back at the space station except when he blew the rock all to hell. There wasnt enough monster mayhem and i kind of enjoyed the first person thing at the end it was sortaof groovy. 2 outta 5

[Dr. Whom]

Finally got round to viewing it. Well, it's got atmosphere (reminded me a bit of Blade II in places) and the whole set up is nicely done. Inevitably, you wonder which Marine will get it first, and they didn't go for the obvious.

On the other hand, there is FAR too much time of people walking through dark corridors, looking worried. When you go to movie based on a shooter game, you expect something to get shot, occassionally. Instead, you get a lot of wandering around in the dark, then a bit of exposition, and suddenly the bodycount skyrockets. The pacing of Resident Evil was better.

I also think The Rock was underused in this one. Sure he is no great actor, but with a better script, he could have done a better job of 'Model Marine going mad'. Also he's got a great physical presence and a certain grace when he moves, whereas in Doom he is limited to glowering in the dark. Surely some kind of  duel with a monster in the first part of the movie isn't too much to ask?

Some things I learned from this movie:
*In the future, all night vision technology will be lost.
*The ultimate in hand held weaponry looks like a V8 engine.

[Wicked Nick]

Why is it that when ever they make a movie out of a game, hey have to change everything that made the game so cool. What was wrong with demons from hell? Thats such a cool idea. I wanted sick demons tearing people apart and twisted hellish rooms and atmoshpere. Instead they made it about a genetic experiment gone wrong, how incridibly stupid and unoriginal. Did the director and writers know nothing about the games other than what a BFG is. This movie like every other movie based on a video game p**sed me off to no end.

[HappyGilmore]

I actually saw this in the theater.  I'm not a big fan of the video game series, but overall the film was okay.  I've seen worse.  I gotta say though, The Rock pretty much made the movie worth watching.  Even in bad flicks, his performances are decent.  He might not be Brando, but he's not terrible either.

[horseshoe crab]

It was watchable, but there really isn't any excuse for taking one of the greatest, scariest games of all time and turning into a safe, mundane, completely typical action/horror movie.

[DistantJ]

Call me a DOOM lover. I have the DVD and it's one of my favourites. Easily my favourite videogame movie.

Great atmosphere, great monster designs and effects (extra points for using real Steve Wang monsters instead of just CG all the time!), great music, a really fun first person section, a sweet superhuman final brawl and The Rock in one of the most interesting roles he's done.

The only downside really is, as everybody says, the lack of the satanic element from the videogames, but sometimes when I think about a campy Sci-Fi movie involving The Rock and Karl Urban pumping lead into biblical creatures from Hell, in space, does sound like it could have turned out pretty unintentionally hilarious and just downright silly (some things work for videogames or B-movies but not Hollywood blockbusters.) and I think that maybe it was the right choice to ommit it, but include metaphors and refrences.

Either way, Hell or not, I really enjoy DOOM, it's like a 21st century ALIENS with a kickass Marine vs. Marine superhuman punchup at the end.

It's the destiny of every videogame movie to be called "terrible" on the internet, because videogame fans can't take the changes. Some of the best movies I've seen have been seriously hammered at in big numbers for reasons such as differences between the movie and the source material in all kinds of movie adaptations of other media. I remember seeing a number of sites referring to the Tomb Raider movies as "terrible" despite those being very popular and particularly fun Indiana Jones-esque adventures. I think that a lot of people out there need to get themselves familiar with a certain term called "based on" as opposed to "adaptation of". Videogames are getting to the point where they're almost like movies themselves but with a longer running time and you in control, so if you're going to make a 90 minute movie of a 40 hour videogame, I say you might as well be creative and make it fun.

[dean]

Either way, Hell or not, I really enjoy DOOM, it's like a 21st century ALIENS with a kickass Marine vs. Marine superhuman punchup at the end.

I think my main problem with this movie is the fact that it's called Doom...

They could have easily made a Space Marines fighting monsters on Mars [or similar] without screwing with the Doom Hell plot point.  I mean, I understand changes will be made, but that still doesn't excuse shoddy marketing techniques.  It's just easier to get the $$$ with a 'name' behind it, and as such I just can't agree with the fact that it's just an ok movie when I know they could have done better.

[DistantJ]

Well not really, it has a lot of elements taken straight from DOOM, particularly the teleportation and the UAC and stuff, and it definitely has the feel. I mean it's not like having the DOOM name on the movie makes it suddenly 'official' or damages the game in any way. Besides if it wasn't called DOOM I probably wouldn't have had the pleasure of seeing it.

Apparently they went through like 15 different scripts using the Hell idea and they just couldn't get it to work - and it makes sense that it wouldn't. I'd rather they changed the idea and came out with a great movie like this than kept it and ended up with something which turned out bad.

As I say, it's a movie based on the game, not a direct adaptation of it, and there is like a huge heaven/hell metaphor going on which is more suited to this 21st century atheist world.