Movie Review: Doom (2005)

Synopsis: When a research lab on Mars is locked down for unknown reasons, a group of marines are sent to the planet to investigate and soon discover a problem that presents a danger to themselves and to Earth.

Who's in it? The movie stars Dwayne Johnson, Karl Urban, Rosamund Pike, Deobia Oparei and Ben Daniels.

Review: There wasn't much on television yesterday evening, so my wife and I decided to watch a movie. Since she was tired after being in the sun most of the day, I decided to skip the movies on our preferred list and pick something that looked like it would be reasonably entertaining. That ended up being this film.

My wife and I both were sure we had seen this movie before but neither of us could remember anything about it. As it turns out, the most likely reason for that was we didn't think it was very memorable.

I think the thing that really hurts this film is, as is the case with the video games that inspired them, it's difficult to watch this movie without comparing it to the Resident Evil films. Unfortunately for Doom, the latter, including the many sequels, is just better in almost every way and that in turn makes this look like a weak rip-off.

Also not helping is the movie doesn't really spend a whole lot of time adding any sort of depth to the group of marines. They are very one dimensional with some practically interchangeable and the few that have some sort of personality weren't overly likable. It was just hard to care if they lived or died and that included Sarge, despite the fact my wife and I both normally like Dwayne Johnson in movies.

Frankly, I had a hard time staying awake while watching this (I might have even drifted off for a few minutes) just because I found it hard to become invested in the characters or the overall plot. It certainly wasn't as entertaining as we hoped it would be. Probably the only redeeming thing I can say about it was the nice throwback, toward the end, to the first-person shooter concept of the game. However, even that wasn't enough to improve my overall opinion of it.

Final Opinion: Some video games should just remain video games. This one would be a good example of why.

My Grade: D+