Doom

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Once again, with this particular adaptation, I tend to be an odd man out. Despite the fact that 'Doom' fans, for the most part, seem to actively hate this movie and how it tackles things, I tend to think there are far worse video game adaptations out there. Does it represent the games perfectly? No. But I admit that the overall aesthetic of the film is something that genuinely reminds me of the games. It may not be right on, but it's certainly not so horribly off as looking at "Goombas" in 'Super Mario Bros'. I'd say that all the right elements are here, it's just that a hack and slash game like 'Doom' is hard to make into something to take seriously.

Opening in 2026 (so soon), deep below the Nevada Desert, a portal to an ancient Martian city is discovered and named "The Ark". Jumping to 2046, a group of personnel at the Union Aerospace Corporation research facility on Mars are attacked by an unknown source, sending eight Marines into action after a distress call from Dr. Carmack (​Robert Russell). Said marines, lead by Sarge (Dwayne Johnson - still credited as "The Rock") include John "Reaper" Grimm (Karl Urban), Destroyer (Deobia Oparei), Goat (Ben Daniels), Duke (Razaaq Adoti), Portman (Richard Brake), Mac (Yao Chin), and a rookie going by The Kid (Al Weaver). Their mission is to search and destroy whatever caused the distress call, and retrieve computer data from their various science experiments.

Upon reaching Mars, the Marines meet up with UAC employee Pinky (Dexter Fletcher) and Reaper finds his sister, Dr. Sam Grimm (Rosamund Pike). They learn that a dig site was reopened where an ancient, genetically enhanced humanoid race was discovered. But little do they know just how heavy things are about to get, and their search, destroy, retrieval mission soon turns into a living Hell, as they are eventually picked off, one by one, by mysterious and demon-like creatures. The film also does a decent job of keeping us guessing as to who the real villain is here, as one particular character goes the other direction after a while. So while not perfect, all of the right elements do seem to be here. Well, except for one very important, key thing to the games, and I therefore understand why fans are upset.

​The setting here is LIKE Hell, but it's not actually Hell as the games would suggest. These creatures aren't the Imps and Hell Knights we all know and love so much as genetically altered humanoids that look demonic. I suppose this was done for a couple of reasons. For one, 'Event Horizon' had already done Hell in space as far as film is concerned, and secondly, for a general movie-going audience, human experimentation might be a little scarier than the simplicity of Hell. Facing facts, the games are incredibly simplified. Go fight demons and try not to die. I can agree with the disappointment of there not being Hell on Mars here, as it would have been such a simple change. But it wasn't enough to completely ruin things for me, either. I managed to just see it as an alternate take while all the right elements were still there.

The film includes some of our favourite doom items, which help make it a bit more like the game. There are doors that need the right key cards, a med-kit is requested to heal someone, the "steroids" (or at least some kind of drug) is present, the BFG exists here as the cool big weapon Dwayne Johnson wants to use against the creatures he's fighting, and above all else, the best scene of the movie is from a first-person perspective as the character does indeed hack and slash his way through things. All in all, adaptation wise, I might actually consider this to be one of the slightly better ones out there as long as you can work around the whole "no Hell" idea. It could have been better, sure, but I guarantee you it could have been a Hell of a lot worse.

​3/5 

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