Doomsday [2008]

See Larger Image	List Price: £19.99 Our Price: £4.98 Availability: Usually dispatched within 10 to 13 days Manufacturer: Universal Pictures UK Starring: Sean Pertwee, Adrian Lester, Bob Hoskins, MyAnna Buring, Rhona Mitra Directed By: Neil Marshall Average Customer Rating:


Audience Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over Binding: DVD EAN: 5050582540321 Format: PAL Label: Universal Pictures UK Manufacturer: Universal Pictures UK Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Universal Pictures UK Region Code: 2 Release Date: 2008-09-01 Running Time: 108 Studio: Universal Pictures UK
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Editorial Reviews: Loud, violent, and proudly derivative, the post-apocalyptic action-thriller Doomsday is the latest from UK cult director Neil Marshall, who impressed horror fans with his previous efforts, Dog Soldiers and The Descent. Both pictures established Marshall as a director with a knack for reinventing well-worn genre pictures, but here, he seems more interested in stitching together favorite scenes and elements from established horror and science-fiction films. Escape from New York is the main source for Doomsday, though there are plenty of nods to The Road Warrior and its multitude of Italian-made carbon copies, as well as the zombie/plague subgenre; the lovely but impassive Rhona Mitra is the Snake Plissken-esque loner sent by police (represented by Bob Hoskins) to infiltrate Scotland, which has descended into anarchy following a viral outbreak. The disease has surfaced in London (now a walled city), and Mitra is dispatched to find a scientist who may possess a cure. Marshall's vision of Scotland in ruins brings together the punk/modern primitive costume design of George Miller's Mad Max trilogy with some eclectic homegrown elements (knights on horseback defending a gang leader's castle), and while these touches are novel, the picture as a whole should ring overly familiar to any viewer who's spent time in the exploitation trenches during the past 25 years. Younger and less discerning audience members will undoubtedly enjoy the plentiful violence and gore, as well as the unbridled performances of the supporting cast, especially stuntwoman/actress Lee-Ann Liebenberg as the heavily tattooed Viper. --Paul Gaita
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Mad Max Poo Comment: Neil Marshall's movies have managed to be entertaining despite their derivative content, Doomsday however is neither original or good. Marshall obviously loved "Escape From New York" and "Mad Max 2" as a lad because he's decided to make a sloppy, spliced together montage of the two. The movie opens with a great clunkly lump of exposition in an attempt to sow up some of the enormous holes in the plot...its a horrible piece of narrative that serves as warning for what was to come. Both of the films on which this is based had a humorous element but the humour was pitch black and perfectly balanced..."Doomsday" suffers from the same problem as "Waterworld" in that you can never quite work out whether it is supposed to be ludicrous or not...rock music, cannabalism and Bentley Continentals, no...me neither. Where the film really comes apart is in its attempt to ape "The Roadwarrior"...Marshall steals a couple of shots directly from that masterpiece and comes off badly. George Miller was a genius at kinetic direction and his car scenes are the best to have ever been burned to celuloid...don't mess with it. Another slightly embarrassing sci fi film with English accents, what a pity. Customer Rating: Summary: Rhona Mitra is great, but the film is a cinematic mess Comment: Remember when we had no choice but to watch beefed-up, brainless brutes try to save the day in any ultra-violent, post-apocalyptic action thriller? Thank goodness those times have changed, and we can shout the mantra that hotness prevails even as the source of all that hotness goes about kicking the posterior of any man who dares get in her way. I don't know if Rhona Mitra could take out the likes of Milla Jovovich - but I do know that is one catfight I would pay lots of money to see. One thing I do know, however, is that Doomsday is all about Rhona Mitra. Without her, this movie crashes and burns. As others have pointed out, Doomsday is (to put it nicely) highly derivative of several earlier films; the weird thing is that most of those derivative scenes and situations are pretty stupid and over-the-top. Even the great Michael McDowell isn't in the film long enough to make his character's recidivistic little fiefdom believable, but it's the whole Mad Max society that really weighs heavily on this film's overall success (or lack thereof). One song you won't hear on this film's hard-edged soundtrack is Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper. Everybody fears the Reaper virus, as it has engulfed all of Scotland in a matter of days. Despite serious international ramifications, the British government makes the seemingly sane choice of placing the whole of Scotland in quarantine. I'm not sure how they went about building an elaborate wall all the way across the border of England and Scotland almost overnight, but build it they did, essentially sentencing every inhabitant of Scotland to a horrible death. One of the few souls to escape (albeit without her right eye) grows up to become Britain's hottest female cop - and, thirty years after the Reaper virus outbreak, the person chosen to lead a team of cure-seekers back into the plagued northern lands. It seems the British government has been covering up any and all knowledge of a significant number of survivors existing in Scotland. Now the virus has popped up again - in no less a place than London - so all will be lost if a cure is not discovered very quickly. Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) and her team have less than 48 hours to get in to Scotland, find a source for the cure, and return home to save the day. The plan goes awry fairly quickly as the team is attacked by a gang of ruffians with really bad haircuts, an obsession with facial tattoos, and absolutely no fashion sense. When they're not doing whatever animalistic morons do, they like to rock out to Fine Young Cannibals music and, on occasion, eat one another. Later on, what's left of the team finds yet another society of loons living quite the mediaeval lifestyle. Holed up in an ancient castle, these guys take the Renaissance Festival lifestyle (Huzzah!) to bold new lows. Malcolm McDowell's talents seem rather wasted on his role as the little fiefdom's leader, and the story quickly reverts back to its strength - gory, nonstop violence. As long as you look at the script as nothing more than an excuse for stringing together a bunch of bloody fight scenes, you have a good chance of enjoying what you see here. The story itself is hopelessly muddled, a sort of Frankenstein's monster sewn together with different parts of other, easily recognizable movies. That's the real source of frustration among a majority of fans. Director Neil Marshall raised the bar quite high with his two previous films, Dog Soldiers [2002] and The Descent [2005]. Very much unlike those two films, Doomsday is little more than a mindless ode to violence and unoriginality. Customer Rating: Summary: Not a masterpiece, but I like it Comment: A movie made of "frame" by a series of classic film. The theme of the virus killer (last examples 28 days, 28 weeks, etc..) mixed to Mad Max & similia, mixed with Escape of New York, mixed with Timeline (with the castle and "medioeval" knights) mixed with Aliens (troopers on APC) and so on. A good cast, some original idea (ie, the eye-camera ..)some "free and unuseful" violence scenes (ie the "rocked" scottish young cannibals) some stupid things (ie the "stored" "old" Bentley with OK tyres pressure and full battery, full operative after years of storage ....)If you search a serious, realistic, original movie change teathre. If you like "no-brain" (ie "not cerebral") action movie is a "decent" product. Customer Rating: Summary: Excellent homage to great movies! Comment: If you liked Escape from New York, Mad Max, Gladiator, & The Warriors, along with Dog Soldiers & The Descent, then you'll love this. You will easily spot the copied characters, scenes & music, because Neil Marshall has obviously done this on purpose. Ignore the bad reviews. This film is excellent. Enjoy. Customer Rating: Summary: Escape from Mad Road rage Comment: As much as I loved Dog Soldiers and The Descent, even though it wore it's influences on it's sleeve quite brazenly (Ahem...Alien) Doomsday, again uses the same trick of blending 80's genre movies, into a retro modern homage-a-thon of set pieces, but unfortunately the resulting film just failed to deliver what it set out to be, maybe we're all too cult movie savvy these days ? who knows? The premise isn't original, I won't go into it here, just read the synopsis above... Take a dash of Escape from New York, Mad Max, 28 days later, Highlander, put into a blender, and hey presto! Doomsday! I'm giving this movie 3 stars, because like Marshall, I have fond memories of cult 80's movies and have put in many many man ( and boy hours) absorbing them the old fashioned way, without access to websites telling me what's cool! I'm sure in a few years time we'll look back on it more favorably and it'll be judged a cult classic in it's own right, but just now people are just too cynical and used to massive FX action movies. Doomsday is an enjoyable, cliche'd romp thru the 80's genre movies, I'd watch it again with mates and a few beers, playing "spot the homage"! What I will say however in Neil Marshall's favour, is that he likes a strong woman (women) in his movies, so he gets kudos from me for doing so. I look forward to his next movie, and hope he can get back on track and create the genre masterpiece he has been threatening since Dog Soldiers. More Reviews