| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Nlneff
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
USA
84 Posts |
 Posted - 03/17/2008 : 8:44:29 PM
|
I also posted this review under my username Eric45 at stomptokyo.
“So what do you think the Pod Person did to the guy who directed “The Descent”?”
Those were my first words to my friend after leaving the theatre. While perhaps I was being somewhat unfair with that comment, I’d have to say the Niel Marshall’s 3rd movie simply jumped off the rails for me early on. We have all heard complaints about hyperactive editing and skaycamitis in modern movies. This may be the first movie I’ve seen where the narrative storyline itself essentially has shakycamitis, which shakes the viewers suspension of disbelief to pieces long before the end of the movie.
Some disclosure. Genre films are something of a acquired taste, and I’ll admit I never really liked the cyberpunk post apocalyptic film style. The Mad Max films I can take or leave, but I’m not really part of the target audience here. I’ve heard several people say, from both posters on this board and elsewhere, that they really enjoyed this, keep that in mind.
Doomsday starts off reasonably well. A virus called the reaper virus starts off in Glasgow and quickly sweeps across Scotland. In desperation, the government walls off the entire northern portion of the country in order to contain it, and then abandons any attempts to help and basically pretends it doesn’t exist. 30 years later, the virus pops up again, this time in London. While a desperation plan to basically isolate and wipe out London proceeds, its revealed to our heroine Eden Sinclair (who barely escaped the initial outbreak as a child.) that satellite observation has shown human activity in Scotland for the last 3 years. She’s been picked to go into no man’s land to determine how humanity survived, and find a cure if possible.
Minor aside. Possibly since this was intended for wider release, the accents of all the major characters has been toned down from his earlier movies like Dog Soldiers, I had no problems understanding every character, however this may rob some of the enjoyment of hearing more authentic regional slang….
Now so far there this is serviceable. We have to accept quite a bit of plot contrivances to get here, but we haven’t reached the breaking point yet. We have the Reaper Virus, no problem there (And its nice for once that the killer virus is natural, there is no suggestion this is a man made bioweapon or anything.) We have the situation where containment is the only option, and we have to accept that while it spreads too fast for normal containment it doesn’t spread so fast that building a wall across the entire country can't stop it. Then we have to accept that no reconnaissance or fortified outposts are maintained in the country, and a no fly zone that extends to everyone, military and civilian, even UAV’s. Ok, starting to strain credibility. Now we have to accept that satellite recon is the only intelligence available. Hmmm. Oh, and the no fly rule can’t even be violated now, because it would produce too much negative publicity (they are planning on destroying London, somehow I doubt covertly flying over would make the front page.) Now if they DO find a cure, they can be flown out, because then the publicity wouldn’t matter anymore (See above, wouldn’t destroying London also trump any flying publicity?)
Ok, well, we can swallow all that. It feels a bit like a python swallowing a pig, but it can be done. But on reflection, we have to accept much more then that. The economic distress and overpopulation the entire situation has caused is mentioned, and we have to accept that in 30 years there has been no effort to see if Scotland is now disease free, or can be resettled, etc et al. (Scotland isn’t exactly the Sahara desert, it has significant natural resources, and I’m not cynical enough to believe that the citizens who had family there wouldn’t want at least a accounting of all their loved ones) This still wouldn’t be a deal breaker, but a lot of the plot rests on these assumptions, including a government plan regarding the new outbreak (A “evil” plan of course) that is…stupid, so stupid it really feels like after writing the script Neil decided that he had to include a evil government plan for the movie to be complete.
In a movie like “Dawn of the Dead.” you have to accept that the dead get up and start killing people. But once you get past that the rest of the movie goes down pretty easy. Things like the Shopping Mall continuing to have power long after society has collapsed seem pretty minor. But “Doomsday” starts with the incredulous factor pretty high, and every new plot development is more ridiculous then the last, and this continues to the very end of the movie.
Having said all this, I liked the first 1/3 of the movie. The scenes of the team moving into the hot zone and starting to track down a possible cure are pretty good. Neil Marshall is still a effective director, and the non action scenes are put together well. Then the Mad Max wackos show up.
I’m not sure if what follows for the rest of the movie is best regarded as a homage, or a series of rip offs. Truthfully almost every action scene that follows will give the viewer a déjà vu feeling, as in
Is he ripping that off from Aliens?
Is he ripping that off from Mad Max?
Is he ripping that off from Gladiator?
Is he ripping that off from Death Proof?
Is he ripping that off from Willow? (Yes, Willow.)
Some of these are so obvious that they could just about be taken as Satire, but even if they were, they were not particularly effective. Now there is very little truly new under the sun, and there is nothing wrong with having a homage to previous films, ideally with a new twist or improvement on them. But these scenes fly at the viewer so fast that there is very little different that Marshal could do with them even if he wanted to. He squeezes in a 28 days later viral disaster movie, a Mad Max apocalyptic movie, the first half of Aliens, and a Medieval movie, among others, none of which gel together well. Indeed the Medieval storyline could be excised from the movie with almost no impact whatsoever on anything other then the bloated running time. Doomsday jumps from storyline from storyline and from implausibility to greater implausibility so fast that eventually I lost interest. (Plus there was no “This…is my BOOMSTICK!” scene, even though there was a perfect chance to do it. And if you are going to reference so many movies, you need a boomstick line...IMHO)
Speaking of which, this movie needed some more time in the editing room. Individual scenes go on too long, honestly, when you see 20 cannibalistic cyber punks run at our heroes only to be gunned down, seeing 20 more do it again really doesn’t add much to your enjoyment. Other scenes are just completely unnecessary. For example, in a movie that asks the viewer to buy some pretty incredible things, there is actually a scene explaining how the team has 2 armored cars. This puzzled me. They are a internal security force, they would have armored cars, no further explanation is necessary. Instead we get a left handed explanation that we don’t need, and that further suggests that the two cars the team has are the last ones left in the country (?)
Oh, the hyperactive editing is back in this movie, albeit the earlier action scenes are somewhat more comprehensible then the later ones.
Now as I said, Neil Marshall is still a skilled director, and there are always little nuggets of gold throughout the film to remind you of that, but ultimately I have to regard Doomsday as a incoherent mess, at least to someone who had no special interest in this style of movie.
Hopefully his next movie will be a return to the form that gave us “The Descent” and “Dog Soldiers” |
|
|
BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2008 : 4:12:40 PM
|
You hit pretty close the mark, Nineff. I gave this one a whirl a couple of days ago, and I had trouble believing it was directed by the same guy who made Dog Soldiers and especially The Descent.
Let's see, here are a few things I can recall thinking while watching the movie....
One thing Neil Marshall's good at is casting good actors for his characters. Rhona Mitra is good as a one-eyed bad-ass (though I have to agree with Ken Begg; no matter how tough she is, a 110-pound woman will be no match for a guy who's 250 pounds of pure muscle). Bob Hoskins, Alexander Siddig, David O'Hara and especially Malcolm MacDowell (who has almost nothing to do) are slumming, but they keep in top form. Funny thing; I used to think that Nana Visitor or Terry Farrell would be Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's breakout star. But Siddig has both talent and versatility; I doubt he'll ever be hurtin' for work.
Let's see....
The first alarm bell went off in my head during Hoskins' and Mitra's first dialogue scene. Two people, sitting on a curb, talking, and the editing looks like something that MTV would consider too jumpy. Bad sign.
Next comes the blindingly obvious Aliens rip-off. The difference between this movie and Aliens is that Aliens had characters with a little personality. You didn't know much about, say, Frost or Dietrich, but you knew enough to know they were human beings. Can't say the same about this bunch; I didn't even recognize Nora-Jane Noone when I first saw her. She had so little to do that she couldn't stand out.
By the way, Neil Marshall has riffed on God knows how many movies, but when he did it before, he made it fresh. Not this time. You could play a drinking game naming all the movies he cribs off of, badly, here.
Let's see, skip ahead, skip ahead, skip ahead.
When the cannibal tribe starts boppin' to "Good Thing" by the Fine Young Cannibals, that was inspired. When they barbecued one of Our Heroes and started eatin' him, that was disgusting.
Let's see.... I'm impressed that the guy who played the lead crawler in The Descent also played the heavy in this movie. He's not a half bad actor.
Ah, and here's the big one. There's a good reason the lady with the Maori-style facial tattoos figures so prominently in the advertising. All due respect to Mitra, but this woman would've wiped the floor with her in real life. As evil as this character was, I found her to be the most interesting thing about the movie. She was played by a stuntwoman, and had only one spoken line, but she has a very expressive face, and GREAT eyes (I suspect that she's an absolute knock-out when ya take the make-up off). If she has a shred of acting talent, someone needs to snap her up and put her in a GOOD movie.
Let's see.... Adrian Lester was good as Talbot; once again, he was more interesting than the lead (I don't know if that should worry Mitra or Marshall more), and it was good to see Myanna Buring again. Maybe she'll be typecast as a damsel in distress, but she has a sweet face and voice, and she can play the part.
All in all, some talented actors, pretty good photography, and nowhere to go. One of the bigger disappointments I've seen in a while. |
 |
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
Doomsday
Forum Locked