Motompa
Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.
Patience Watson
One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.
Yazmin
Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
Reticent_Reviewer
I remember walking past an electronics shop back in the 90s, and seeing Doom playing on loop on that machine. It was the sole reason that I moved from an Amiga to a PC, however good the Amiga games machine was in its day.Like many reviewers here, I found the movie okay for sure, and The Rock can carry a movie despite its shortcomings. It had decent amount of one-liners, action, and the first person perspective section was well done.However, I'm still waiting for someone to produce a movie based on the game which is faithful to the content of the game itself.
Tominatorxx
First of all, I kinda like this film for what it is: an action/horror movie. But I have no idea why the DOOM name is attached to it. As a big fan of the games I can safely say there is not much in this film that is faithful to its source material. Now there are similarities between this film and the DOOM games (as you would expect) but there are also many things that are completely different from the games.So the film is set on Mars like one part of the games is (the other being Hell which I will come back to later in this review) in a facility where all hell broke loose (pun intended). A special team of highly trained soldiers is sent there to investigate and to terminate the threat.Now this is already the first big difference. DOOM games are well known for having a nameless character starring as the protagonist. We all refer to him as our beloved Doomguy. Now do I think the director made a mistake by not following the game in that aspect? Not really to be honest. It would be almost impossible to make a film in which the protagonist doesn't say a word. You could ask yourself: "Then why would you make a film based on a game like DOOM?". And to be honest I don't know why you would.But I have to say that the idea of soldiers sent in by UAC is possibly the best they could come up with. At least that way you can have conversations in your film.Now back to the story. Without spoiling everything. The reason why these monstrosities are causing havoc has something to do with chromosome science. They want to create superhumans by adding 1 chromosome to people. Turns out the test subjects (criminals) become monsters after they get injected with the 24th chromosome. The reason? I'm not going to spoil that. But honestly it is basically pure nonsense.The people who read the previous paragraph and played the DOOM games will immediately notice something... Where are the demons from hell? Well they aren't in the film, in fact they never go to hell either. I know... a DOOM film without demons from hell... is not a real DOOM film in my opinion.What is in the film though is the BFG (though for some reason it shoots blue energy instead of green plasma).If you read this review up to this part, you might as well be reading a review about a film adaptation of Resident Evil. Monsters and zombies created by questionable science projects, a team of trained operatives which is send to investigate. Only differences are: we are in a science facility on Mars instead of a creepy mansion. Characters can even get infected by the monsters in the movie. In the games the monsters from hell just kill you. That's it. Onto the good things about this film then. Most of the characters are enjoyable to watch, the acting is good, the atmosphere is very well done (very DOOM 3 like), the special effects are pretty good for a 2005 film and the soundtrack is very good as well. And I should of course also mention the FPS section of the film, which is really well done. It's quite impressive actually, if you consider that the film came out in 2005. Nowadays it's easy with GOPRO cameras but back then it must have been really hard to pull off.All in all I have to say that I enjoyed the film. Mostly because of its atmosphere and not because it's a good DOOM film. In fact if I would rate it purely on the basis of it being faithful to DOOM, I would probably give it a 3 out of 10.But if you watch this film and can look at it as an original idea that isn't based on a certain game, then I think you might like it for what it is. Me personally, I'm kind of torn between giving it a 5 or a 6 out of 10. It's an okay film. I'll probably give it a 6 just because that FPS section was really well done and the atmosphere was definitely good as well.Don't expect anything great from this film. It's pure popcorn entertainment. And it's pretty good popcorn entertainment.
Leofwine_draca
Neither as bad as I had feared or as good as I had hoped, DOOM is a film that veers between being pretty good and only okay. It's a darn sight better than other modern Hollywood pap like the first two RESIDENT EVIL movies, which is a plus, but the movie has plenty of clichés and is too obviously modelled on ALIENS rather than the game itself; over the past two decades, we've had about a hundred of these "soldiers walking down corridors"-type science fiction films, and it really is enough. Still, DOOM ticks all of the right boxes, with a particular emphasis on the horror; there are zombies here (a little silly and disappointing though), monsters, bloodshed, and lots of jumpy sequences.I'm a massive fan of the game series, and I was aware that this film did stray away from the game quite a lot. Still, the inclusion of game elements like the chainsaw, the BFG, and the pink demon are fun, and the first-person shooter sequence, which lasts for about ten minutes at the end of the film, is fun, if a little cheesy. Watching as a gun goes around shooting zombies and then a chainsaw sawing up a monster is good, gruesome fun; the camera-work is far from fluid, though, and as a whole the sequence pales in comparison to a similar moment in the Thai action flick BORN TO FIGHT.The cast is one of the film's strengths. Karl Urban puts in yet another good performance; honestly, he's been great in everything he's done since LORD OF THE RINGS, and I'm looking forward to his next film, PATHFINDER. The Rock has a little deeper character than you might expect, far from being the one-dimensional marine hero that the film introduces him as; his character's twist makes for one of the film's most involving moments. Lower down the cast list, the performances are strong as well. It's great to see Dexter Fletcher in a Hollywood movie, and he makes the best of his kooky, wheelchair-bound role; he also delivers the film's best line, "There's something behind me, isn't there!" Richard Brake (the parent-killer in BATMAN BEGINS) also puts in a good turn as a nasty soldier. Sadly, Rosamund Pike is the film's weakest link, incredibly wooden and miscast as a scientist.The film's special effects are fantastic; the monsters look really good and gruesome and there's fun to be had from portal doorways and the BFG blasts. It's just a shame that the monsters are seen so little on screen; 90% of the action takes place in really dark corridors, so your eyes end up straining to try and make out what's going on. Still, the movie does pack plenty of incident into the running time, there are some fun twists and turns that make it stand out, and fans of the game will have fun. Not a masterpiece, but an enjoyable film all the same.
dvts
This film pulls off the neat trick of ripping off like 4 different Aliens movies at once. It's a feat of screen writing. It's good fun for a long time, nonetheless. The casting is rather good, I've never liked Urban as much in anything else as I did in this. Rosamund Pike is great as always. And great credit for casting The Rock in a bad guy role. Dwayne Johnson is much better-suited to be playing menacing heavies like this than his usual stuff. He started out as a heel in wrestling for a good reason. Anyway it's well-made, by the numbers kind of stuff. It includes a 'revelation' of something the audience had figured out literally a half hour prior. Bad writing there. But it doesn't connect the twins' parents' death to the current plot - which is good writing and shows restraint. The monsters were OK. Nothing special. The rules of the hunt weren't really established - movie didn't quite play fair. Monsters would seemingly reappear out of nowhere when needed, when realistically, 3 or 4 giant monsters rampaging around would make a lot of noise and be hard to miss. There's a rather brilliant bit late. Urban has just 'evolved' via the injection. The film suddenly wakes up, as he wakes up, and suddenly we're seeing a hyper-kinetic film version of a first-person shooter game. Stylistically this works in two ways at once, showing how he sees now with heightened awareness and intelligence and ability, while also doing the cool homage to the game.Unfortunately, following this wonderful scene, we get a horrible endless drawn out terrible tedious not interesting at all knock down drag out between Urban and the Rock, both enhanced. This damn scene just refuses to end. There's literally no tension or interest whatsoever, the thing isn't filmed interestingly, or choreographed interestingly - we know who's going to win, and Pike's character has already been safely seen away, meaning there's nothing at stake in the scene and no risk to anybody. It's just bad. It's a slog. A huge comedown after the amazing rush of the first-person shooter sequence.But all in all, not a bad movie. As a fan of such stuff (monster movies, sci-fi action films, etc) I enjoyed it. No regrets.
