one of my absolute favorites!

Awesome Movie

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Andrzej Bartkowiak has been the cinematographer on three films that were nominated for Best Picture Academy Awards: The Verdict, Terms of Endearment and Prizzi's Honor. But he may be better known for his films that combined hip-hop and action, like Cradle 2 the Grave, Exit Wounds and Romeo Must Die. He's also been behind two video game films: Doom and Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li.That said, Time selected this as one of the top 10 worst video game movies, along with House of the Dead, Wing Commander, In the Name of the King, Hitman, BloodRayne, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Double Dragon, Street Fighter and Super Mario Brothers. Trust me -- it's not that bad. And films like this (and a few others on the list) don't belong in the same wastebin as Uwe Boll films.After a Mars research station is attacked, Dr. Todd Carmack sends a distress call that is answered by a team of Marines, led by Asher "Sarge" Mahonin (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson). John "Reaper" Grimm (Karl Urban, Dredd) and his sister, Dr. Samantha (Rosamund Pike, star of Becca's go to DVD, Gone Girl) are there to retrieve critical info before the base is destroyed. We learn that they were born on Mars and their parents were killed here. All that remained after their accident were skeletons of genetically enhanced humans.Of course, all hell breaks loose -- literally. Demonic monsters attack, The Rock ends up being the bad guy, innocent people get killed, a long first-person sequence happens and there's plenty of action. Seriously, the movie is short on story and long on special effects and gore. It's like an Alien movie without the xenomorphs, I guess. Or much excitement. It's competently made, but an hour after it was over and I started writing this, all I could remember that I enjoyed was that the Rock played against his usual character and that Karl Urban got to be the hero.

This movie must be rated at least nine out of ten since the cast is well- suited for an action film, the plot is coherent and bears resemblance to the original game and acting is , in contrast to what other critics say, is actually awesome. The psychological and physical struggle between The Rock and Urban is well told throughout the movie, thus the climax is their final fight. Overall, a good plot and characters make a good sci-fi action adventure movie. This film is definitely worth watching twice.

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.

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.