There might be plenty of Doom fans that won’t agree with this assessment, since nearly three decades ago Doom came out and was one of the hottest games to ever hit the PC since many people thought it was absolutely awesome. Going back and seeing how it stacks up with the truly violent games of today is kind of comical since the style of play and the graphics have advanced to such a degree that some people actually prefer the original. They’ll say they like ‘old school’ but there are plenty of those that play the game today that have yet to grasp the concept of old school when it comes to video games. In terms of the movie though, it was kind of a gore-fest that was entertaining enough to capture and keep the attention, but this was likely because those that had never played the game didn’t really know what to expect. One thing that’s very certain is that Doom wasn’t a huge hit when it came out, but enough people were interested in watching it to see what the movie was all about.
It could have had something to do with the fact that it starred Dwayne Johnson and Karl Urban as two of the main characters, and included Rosamund Pike as the lead female in a movie dominated by men with big guns and a lot of testosterone. But that’s kind of what carried the movie, almost literally in fact since when it was discovered that the change that came over those that had been infected had to do with who they were on the inside, past where people could see, the idea of how the transformation came about was revealed. A lot of fans that had played the game for so long didn’t really care for the whole idea of the movie’s plot, but likely appreciated the moment when the movie went to the first-player POV format for a short while, though it’s likely that the easy death of the main monster that had caused such havoc didn’t make anyone happy.
This was the buildup between Reaper and Sarge, Urban and Johnson respectively since their final fight was meant to end the movie and show the type of resolution that made people wonder if there would be another move coming eventually. The fact that the movie flopped rather hard made it impossible to see another one coming since the first movie didn’t even make its budget back, which is a sure sign that it wasn’t as appreciated as people would have liked. That’s too bad really since Doom did what it set out to do, it was entertaining enough for those that had never watched the games and delivered on a premise that wasn’t perfect but was still enough fun to sit through since the final fight between Reaper and Sarge was kind of fun. The rest of the movie was all about walking around tunnels, finding out secrets that people didn’t know, and of course, the fight against the scary, aggressive monster that was only one of the things that were running around the Mars station, since the creature didn’t kill everyone, as it sought to change those it touched as well into hellish monsters like itself that were insanely difficult to kill and were every bit as aggressive as it was.
The movie didn’t really take itself that seriously since there was a good deal of humor, dark in a way but still kind of funny since it did lighten the mood a bit now and then. Still, the one thing that a lot of people couldn’t stand about this movie is the lack of accuracy it appeared to have. What’s funny about that is that almost every video game movie has been accused of this once or twice, or more, throughout the years since much like comics and novels, not everything is going to be 100 percent accurate no matter how people try. If it doesn’t have to do with the director having a different vision, then it’s because fans want to get insanely technical and point out absolutely everything that’s different and that didn’t go according to their own expectations. There are times when it’s a desire to shake the fans a little and ask them why they would think that everything would conform to what they want.
When all is said and done this movie wasn’t great, but it wasn’t so bad that it should be forgotten and stowed among the archives so that no one will find it. If nothing else, it kind of shows how Urban and Johnson were still coming up through the ranks back in the day, which is kind of a nice way of saying they hadn’t become the greats they are now. But despite Doom being kind of a stinker for fans, it wasn’t that bad as a movie.
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