Not All Gloom
Something screwy has gone on at a research facility on Mars and so a team of space marines lead by Sarge (Dwayne Johnson) have their leave cancelled to go and investigate. What they discover is something deadly is hanging around in the corridors killing what ever comes across it and not even the marines are safe.
I have never played the game "Doom" although had some sort of awareness that it was a game so that's something. But it means that I came to watch "Doom" as a movie fan rather than a gamer and as a movie fan I got pretty much what I expected which was action, special effects and a whole lot of bravado. But whilst I got what I expected "Doom" didn't blow me away and was just another movie which ended up familiar to others.
So what is "Doom" familiar to? Well like so many of these space movies which feature something deadly in the corridors it does feel heavily influenced by "Alien" and "Aliens" to the point that some of the creepy creatures feel like they have been lifted from those movies. Even the whole idea of space marines is a generic one and what we get is some talk, some action, some action and some talk but that is it.
Now maybe for fans of the game what is presented will mean a lot more, maybe it won't I really don't know but what I do know is that "Doom" is a movie which you can watch the opening 10 minutes and guess how things are going to play out. Yes there is a curve ball when it comes to an antagonistic relationship between a marine and a scientist who happens to be his sister but other than that it is a no thinking movie.
The trouble is that not only does the storyline fail to offer up anything really new neither does the action or special effects. Yes it is entertaining when we meet Dexter Fletcher's character who is half man half wheel chair but everything else is just too familiar.
What this all boils down to is that in one way "Doom" is a success as it delivers exactly what it sets out to. The problem is that what it delivers is so generic that you don't need to watch to know how it will play out.
