"Doom" (2005)

Video game movies are usually a terrible idea. 9 out of 10 times they wreck the image of their respected video game. But I still decided to check out “Doom” for nostalgia reasons. I’ve loved the Doom series since the initial release in ’93, it has been one my favourite games and by far the scariest game I remember playing. Pixelated horror continues to creep me out. Hopefully the advanced CGI doesn’t ruin the scare factor that much. This is my thoughts on this spooky movie.

To my disappointment, the movie’s story has such little to Doom the video games story. It starts off with the weapons research station on Mars. Monsters are loose on the space station and destroying all the vital information. A group of armed soldiers, Rapid Response Tactical Squad as they are referred to, are called to clear out the enemies and retrieve the information. But one thing still doesn’t make sense, how did the monsters get into this perfectly sealed station?

The crew to save Mars.

My biggest problem with this movie is how little it incorporates the Doom franchise in this movie. I can only really thing of a few things that are Doom related: they’re in Mars, there are some possessed monsters and the BFG. And with the Doom taken out of this movie, all you are left with is a very mediocre action/horror/thriller. Which is a shame, because I would of easily of enjoyed it if there was some nostalgia to be had in this movie.

Like I said before, the Doom series is fairly scary. The movie doesn’t scare me all that well. The poor lighting conditions and flashlight failing is still in the movie, but there is no suspense. Meaning when the possessed monsters do pop out of the shadows, no spooks were felt. It’s a shame really. But least the monsters do look fairly scary, the CGI and prosthetics do a good enough job of making a creepy monster. But that means almost nothing when I can’t get freaked out a bit. So no, it fails at being a horror or a thriller movie.

Monster design was great! 

The action feels generic and boring. Even with the presence of the BFG (Big Fucking Gun), nothing really stands out. The same grey hallways with the same grate floors are presence in Doom. Nothing ever feels different and you could of easily have slapped another name on this movie and salvaged the Doom name. And thanks to the absence of light, I really had no idea what was happening and who was shooting who during the fight scenes. Meaning this movie isn’t really all that action packed.

But the disappointments don’t end there, how did Dwayne Johnson look like such a puss ball in this movie? Though it might be excusable that this is one of his first major Hollywood appearances, also his performance was poor. It’s shocking how skinny The Rock used to be, even though he is still amazingly muscular. He just let me down in this movie, that’s all.

By far the worst performance by both Karl Urban and Dwayne Johnson.

Now I did like first person massacre that happens near the end of the movie. This is where you see Grimm’s (Karl Urban) first person view as he goes through station killing zombies, monsters and trying to find his sister. This was a neat feature in the movie, but it only lasted 10 minutes and I felt almost bored by the end of it. But he does meet a monster that walks on his front legs and has a mechanical wheel on his rear, a monster in the Doom video games. That was sort of cool.


The movie is just a ball of disapppointments, it's sad really. This movie could have been better fi they incorporated a bit more of the video game fun into it. Because it lacked this, the movie can be passed as any other action/thriller with horror elements. The lackluster action, terrible performances by all the actors and overall generic feel of the movie makes it hard to be enjoyed by even the most dire of fans.