Neil Marshall’s latest offering was a bit disappointing wasn’t it?
Doomsday sees Scotland quarantined from the rest of the UK after an outbreak of the deadly reaper virus. When the virus shows up later in England, it is revealed that some of the Scots survived. Following the logic that if there are survivors, there’s a cure, a group of hard as nails mercenaries are sent in to find it. They are confronted with a vicious gang of cannibalistic punks who don’t take kindly to visitors but are thankful for the fresh meat.
The film has a neat premise and looked extremely promising but in actuality is a long drawn out series of car chases and explosions. Marshall, who hasn’t previously had (nor has he needed) a big budget, obviously thought he should blow the extra cash on pyrotechnics and cool cars. This wasn’t a very smart move on his part.
Sadly, the large cast spends so much time having fun in unnecessary set pieces (such as the gang members in kilts doing the can-can sequence), that the character development, which was so wonderful to watch in Marshall’s previous efforts, is gone.
Credit to the director, this is a very different film for him and he’s already proved his worth as a filmmaker so he no doubt seized his chance to make a fun homage to his favourite movies. It’s just a shame that he wasted such a great premise here and didn’t hold it back for a more serious genre effort.
OVERALL SUMMARY
A bit of a wasted opportunity in some respects (wouldn’t it have been better to have the team attacked by victims of the virus i.e. gory zombies rather than punks?), Doomsday isn’t all bad, there’s great effects work, nice scenery and the costumes, props and sets are cool, it’s just very OTT and cheesy rather than witty. I was wincing at some of the soundtrack choices.
