Doomsday

Doomsday (2008)

48% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 63 reviews)

Runtime: 113 minutes (unrated version)

Directed by: Neil Marshall

Starring: Rhona Mitra, Bob Hoskins, Craig Conway, Adrian Lester, Malcolm McDowell

From: Universal/Rogue/Intrepid/Crystal Sky

As this is the last day of the year and in the past some people have thought that the end of the year = end of the world, it’s appropriate that I talk about a movie released in early 2008 concerning a post-apocalyptic society, a deadly Reaper Virus and the lengths England goes through to find a cure for it. It’s by Neil Marshall, and the only other flick of his I saw was The Descent, which most people gush over for but I thought it was pretty overrated myself. But, with this…

Doomsday is about the Reaper Virus starting in Glasgow, Scotland in 2008, where it laid waste to the town and it got to the point where the entire country is walled off to the rest of the world and everyone in it is left to die, pretty much. Flash forward 25 years later and the virus manages to spread to London; big trouble. So, the government sends in a team (including Eden (Mitra)) to hunt for scientist Kane (McDowell) in Scotland who was working on a cure for the virus. From there you get everything from a Bentley Continental GT (hey, even if they’re sitting for 25 years they start right up, according to this flick) to young cannibal punks, from animals being destroyed by machinery to a medieval society. It’s also obviously inspired by such movies as the Mad Max flicks, Excalibur, Escape From New York, and quite a few others.

Sure, it’s clear that it’s a homage to those movies of old and in general the characters are just there, but dammit, if you go with it and not think too much about the plot, you should have a great time with it, especially if you’re a fan of the movies that it was inspired by. There’s a nice variety of action, from hand to hand combat, to shootouts, to a wild car chase involving that aforementioned Bentley. There’s also very black humor, reminiscent of that era also. The soundtrack at times sounds like something from the late 70’s to early 80’s and characters have names like Carpenter and Miller, further showing the nod to respect to those classic flicks of old. But, this wild mish-mash stands on its own, I say, and like with Rambo, if you enjoy very bloody violence, this is for you, as you often get that.

Note that from what I understand, the unrated version doesn’t add any sort of violence or nudity or anything like that, but rather expands random scenes with random stuff. I can’t say if it’s any better than the theatrical version or not, so either version is fine for viewing.

I'll be back in a few days with my first review of 2010; who knows what it will be, though.