ZiaZine July 2008 : 10
movies rshall, Marshall, the British filmmaker behind such inventive genre fare as Dog Soldiers and e Descent, is almost trying to make a movie version of a musical mash-up, wherein the melody and/or vocals of different songs are layered over one another to create a new, different song. Only Marshall is trying the same sort of pop collage with film, and while the end result can feel like a mess, it practically doesn’t matter. What makes Doomsday so special is how outlandishly entertaining it is despite its flaws. HE LOVES THE ’80s W riterdirector Neil Marshall’s sci-fi ac- tion thriller Doomsday is a brilliant idea poorly executed—but that’s not what makes it special. Marshall pulls it off by sticking to what he does well— making humans survive something that’s a bit beyond their ken. In an outbreak of something called the Reaper virus has spread through Scotland, wiping out the population it infects. Without a cure, the epidemic [ 10 + monitorTHIS! + JULY 2008 ] Descent auteur Neil Marshall pays heavy homage with the uneven Doomsday by Bret McCabe forces England to erect an armed, quarantining wall around the entire upper island, leaving whatever survi- vors there are to fend for themselves. irty years later, the appearance of the Reaper virus in London compels the militaristic British government to send a specialist team into Glasgow, as satellite photos of the isolated city reveal a few people milling about—suggesting some sort of cure or immunity may be available. A crusading Dr. Marcus Kane (Malcolm McDowell) had stayed behind in Glasgow trying to find a cure, and Prime Minister Hatcher (Alexander Siddiq) taps Department of Domestic Security chief Nelson (Bob Hoskins) to organize a strike force for this potentially suicidal mission. Nelson can think of only one woman man enough for the job: major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), a Scottish refugee orphaned by the quarantine years ago, who has grown into a possibly psychotic killing machine with a bionic right eye she call pull out
He Loves The 80s
Bret McCabe
Descent auteur Neil Marshall pays heavy homage with the uneven Doomsday
WRITER/DIRECTOR NEIL MARSHALL’S sci-fi action thriller Doomsday is a brilliant idea poorly executed—but that’s not what makes it special.
Marshall, the British filmmaker behind such inventive genre fare as Dog Soldiers and !e Descent, is almost trying to make a movie version of a musical mash-up, wherein the melody and/or vocals of different songs are layered over one another to create a new, different song.
Only Marshall is trying the same sort of pop collage with film, and while the end result can feel like a mess, it practically doesn’t matter. What makes Doomsday so special is how outlandishly entertaining it is despite its flaws.
Marshall pulls it off by sticking to what he does well— making humans survive something that’s a bit beyond their ken. In .//0 an outbreak of something called the Reaper virus has spread through Scotland, wiping out the population it infects. Without a cure, the epidemic Forces England to erect an armed, quarantining wall around the entire upper island, leaving whatever survivors there are to fend for themselves.
1irty years later, the appearance of the Reaper virus in London compels the militaristic British government to send a specialist team into Glasgow, as satellite photos of the isolated city reveal a few people milling about—suggesting some sort of cure or immunity may be available. A crusading Dr. Marcus Kane (Malcolm McDowell) had stayed behind in Glasgow trying to find a cure, and Prime Minister Hatcher (Alexander Siddiq) taps Department of Domestic Security chief Nelson (Bob Hoskins) to organize a strike force for this potentially suicidal mission. Nelson can think of only one woman man enough for the job: major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), a Scottish refugee orphaned by the quarantine 2/ years ago, who has grown into a possibly psychotic killing machine with a bionic right eye she call pull out Of her skull and use to peer around corners.
Now, keep in mind all of the above transpires in only !" Minutes of the !"# minute running time (!!$ minutes in the uncut DVD version). %e movie really gears up when Eden and her team climb into a high-tech armored vehicle, roll into Scotland and encounter an army of modern primitives who crib their fashions from the Mad Max trilogy, favor attacking in running waves of !" Days Later zombie-like menace and have developed a taste for human flesh.
%e rest of Doomsday is pure chase, as Eden and a few survivors fend off this horde, search for a cure and try to make it back to the wall for a rendezvous pickup home. It’s ridiculous, but it’s also trying to be outlandish.
Marshall has basically made a Frankenstein out of classic horror and sci-fi movies.
%e opening borrows Escape From New York, and from then on Marshall rummages through ’'"s, ’("s and ’)"s movies from which to crib. And Marshall makes these nods outright, naming one soldier in Eden’s team Miller (as in George Miller, the director of the Mad Max trilogy) and Carpenter (as in John Carpenter, the director of Escape From New York). Mitra’s Eden Sinclair herself—with her chiseled jaw line, deadpan comic delivery and knack for going ballistic at the drop of a hat—could be the love child of Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken and Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor.
And, as befitting a sci-fi action movie heroine, Mitra spends the almost the entirety of the movie in a bodyhugging black jumpsuit and barely messes up her hair, even when she’s lopping off heads.
Marshall has pulled off such recombinant filmmaking before. His *""* debut Dog Soldiers, which went straight to DVD in the U.S., cannily massaged an action-movie premise—military field-training exercises in Scotland— into a horror movie. It is infused with movie references throughout, particularly to the work of Sam Raimi, with one character named Bruce Campbell, after the American actor who starred in Raimi’s Evil Dead series.
%e ’("s obviously hold a special place in Marshall’s heart, and Doomsday is riddled with cheeky snippets from that decade. He works in nods to practically forgotten genre fare such as Walter Hill’s Streets of Fire and even drops in throwaway music from the era, always played for a lark. When one of Eden’s team is submitted to the tribal Glasgow survivors’ human grill, the gang’s DJ (!) Plays the Fine Young Cannibals’ “Good %ing.” And later, when Marshall recreates the final chase from #e Road Warrior, pitting the cannibals’ post-apocalyptic punk cars against Eden’s James Bondian Aston Martin DBS, Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Two Tribes” blares on the soundtrack. Clearly, Marshall is having a bit of fun with his first big-budget movie—and we haven’t mentioned the movie’s middle, which involves Mc- Dowell’s Kane lording over a medieval stronghold that is equal parts Excalibur sword and sorcery and Monty Python surreal.
All of the above cinematic alchemy doesn’t mean that Doomsday has a believable character or grounding performance to save its life—you suspect all Mitra was required to do is look good in skintight clothing and be able to be pout pithily—but any movie that walls off Scotland within its opening minutes isn’t exactly aiming for Oscars. Doomsday isn’t going to be making any critic’s year-end top !" Lists, but as a mash note to ’("s B pictures, it’s as mindlessly entertaining as Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s love letters to ’'"s drive-in movies.
Publication List
