DOOMSDAY

UNIVERSAL

RELEASED 9 May 2008

Neil Marshall’s first two movies’ ‘Dog Soldiers’ and ‘The Descent’, were both cracking horror movies, so it was inevitable that a big studio would offer him a decent budget for a more ambitious film. I don’t think they expected him to make an imitation Eighties action movie! I’ve never seen a film that blatantly rips off so many other famous movies. Neil Marshall must have had a check-list alongside him while writing the script, ticking off Aliens, Blade Runner, Mad Max, Gladiator, The Usual Suspects, 28 Days Later, Highlander, Escape from New York, The Lost Boys, and a few more I forget.

The basic storyline involves a virus turning Scotland into zombies, with the British government quarantining the whole country with an 100ft steel wall. Twenty-seven years later (2035), the virus reappears in London, at the same time as the government discover there are people still alive and uninfected in Scotland. So a crack military team are sent over the wall to find the cure.

‘Doomsday’ is fixated on the Eighties, with it’s use of already-mentioned film influences and music selection. I never believed I’d hear the Fine Young Cannibals’ ‘Good Thing’ again, let alone in a sci-fi movie. ‘Two Tribes’ and Siouxsie and the Banshees’ ‘Spellbound’ also feature.

The dialogue wouldn’t be acceptable in a comic, the acting is dreadful (although the unknown actors are a lot better than the recognised ones), and there’s only the barebones of a story. Although set 27 years in the future, the helicopters, cars, and general technology don’t look any different to what we have today.

After those criticisms, I have to say I enjoyed ‘Doomsday’! It’s still rubbish, and a real step-down from ‘Dog Soldiers’ and ‘The Descent’, but it is entertaining, it’s fast, it does have a sense of humour (which I would accept informed some of the more laughable moments), and it is quite something to see an honest homage to cult movies of the Eighties.

‘Doomsday’ is a real oddity, a big-budget movie that feels less like being 27 years in the future, but coming from 27 years in the past!

TWO OUT OF FIVE