Since becoming a father, I haven’t taken a gamble on a DVD purchase, but at $6.99 and buy 2 get 1 free, I couldn’t pass up this deal. So I grabbed up Redbelt, The Foot Fist Way (review to follow shortly) and Doomsday – a movie that I’d been anxious to see for months now, ever since seeing The Descent, and realising that Neil Marshall has a gift for spinning stories you never knew you needed to see until you’ve seen them. I mean, I never knew I really needed to know about a team of British soldiers encountering a family werewolves in the English countryside until I saw Dog Soldiers – now that I have, I wouldn’t have it any other way… Now with Marshall’s bigger budget, bigger hype post-apocalyptic blitzkreig, perhaps Marshall’s reputation might precede him by now, but he still manages to surprize with clever genre-blending, a shameless use of gore.
There is no doubt that Australia set the standard by which all post-apocalyptic films will be judged – essentially making it so many of the genre’s films are considered With all due respect, Australia made a classic set of films that defined the look and feel of post-apocalyptia, but their former colonial masters have undoubtedly taken that vision and amplified it to a level previously unseen For those unfamiliar with the work of Neil Marshall, directing films like The Descent that boast strong female roles might have you comparing him to the likes of James Cameron (Terminator 2, Aliens) and Joss Whedon (Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
Neil Marshall has never been one to half-step, delving deep into his stories to immerse both himself and his audience in a unique take of a familiar tale. To put it in the simplest of terms, Doomsday starts out like 28 Days Later, turns into Escape From New York, careens into Army of Darkness, and finally shifts gears to become The Road Warrior. Doomsday begins with a devastatingly fatal plague that manifests itself in Scotland. London decides that the only way to preserve civilisation is to wall off Scotland from the rest of the world and let the virus run its course. Despite alienating themselves from the international community, the plan works rather well and the plague fades into memory for a number of years. When the virus emerges again, on the wrong side of the wall, one-eyed special agent Eden Sinclair (the unquestionalbly badass Rhona Mitra) is called upon to enter the forbidden zone and seek out a possible cure. While on the other side of the wall, Sinclair and her team encounter cannibals, knights on horseback, and one incredible Bentley Continental GT. As far as the knights on horseback go, I think I can understand why one half of the movie was left totally unhyped in the hopes of not confusing potential moviegoers. On the other hand, it makes total sense. In the wake of the collapse of civilisation, things had to start over from scratch. Tucked away in the Scottish Highlands, living in an old castle, with no firearms or electricity, it seems only natural to revert back to medieval times. Still, I think that juxtaposing a British luxury car with a knight fully decked out in steel armor might have been a little too much to reconcile in the short span of a movie trailer. It’s just as well, it was a pleasant surprise for me.
If it sounds like schlock – it is. There is some lowest-common-denominator stuff in here, and the parts involving human conflagration, followed by butchering a man and serving him up to the masses might have been a little more than I wanted to see, but there was definitely method to the madness – plenty of clever stuff going on, great little touches too. I especially liked the “Gift Shop” sign in the background at the castle. No pretense here, of course the castle used to be a tourist attraction.
If there’s a way to enhance (not improve) on the standard set by The Road Warrior, Doomsday’s outrageous final car chase gets pretty freaking close and it’s thanks to Marshall making sure that he never takes himself too seriously. The broad strokes are definitely borrow from George Miller, but Marshall finds every nook and cranny possible to inject his own brand to the action. The result is visceral and amusing, a winning combination.
Doomsday might be a little (or a lot) too gruesome for audiences at large, but if you’re well versed in the genre, this serves as a pleasant reminder of what the world after a major disaster strikes has to offer as far as action, adventure, bloodshed and frantic chases go. While it may be a hodge podge of other films of its genre, it manages to become more than simply the sum of its parts.
The Verdict:
