Like every single video game movie ever made, the plot and story have been completely changed for no real reason. This seriously happens every time someone feels like adapting a game to the screen, and I've never really figured it out, as it happens with some comic book movies too. I think it has a lot to do with the creative team involved using the fanfare of an established game franchise to get the project green-lit and then move forward to make the kind of movie they want to make to begin with, rather than giving the fans what is expected. I remember hearing that the director of the 2004 Punisher movie, the one with Thomas Jane, saying that he wanted to make a cool revenge movie. That's why most of it deals with the Punisher going through a lot of trouble to plot out an elaborate revenge, as oppose to just having him blasting everyone, like the real Punisher. It also ripped off the end of Mad Max and made it the beginning. Jane himself said he just wanted to play a character like Travis Brickle from Taxi Driver, so yeah, no one really gave a shit about the source material or cared for an accurate character portrayal, and I have to guess that its why we are getting the weird Sci-Fi bullshit in this movie instead of Demons.
Meanwhile, comic book adaptations of video games are always fucking crazy
In the Doom games Hell literally breaks loose on Mars and space marines have to try and survive or whatever. Here we get the discovery of a human like civilization on Mars. So we get that people came from Mars, we get a teleporter named the Ark, and monsters, and it's not really all that bad if it was a movie with no relation to the Doom games, but it's so different for no reason that it feels like they pussied out on showing religious subject matter and had to try and figure out something more sciencesy. You know, Demons would sound crazy to the average audience member, so instead we get magical 24th chromosome that either makes you superhuman or a superasshole mutant thing. Because the human genome is largely unmapped. Because DNA and the double helix's. Because Science... I mean it is kinda cool to see more sci-fi and science lab action, because it gives the movie a Half Life type vibe, but again, it just feels like they went with the most uninspired cliche they could think of, so we get a "OH NO scientist doing evil science stuff!" story.
So while the change to the story might not be a huge deal, the biggest problem to the movie is that nothing fucking happens for like 3 hours before we start to see some action. It goes for the bullshit horror movie ploy of setting everything up slowly and letting it build, except they aren't setting anything up, so nothing is actually building, aside from boredom. They give you just enough exposition to string you along from scene to scene, but you never feel like anything has happened. In the Doom games, and even Half Life, you do get a set up, but after you're told "Hey this is Mars!" the action starts and it becomes all about surviving. There is no plot to uncover, not that you couldn't sprinkle a little in here and there, but I think that regardless of what the story might have been, the movie would have at least been good if we got "OH SHIT monster's everywhere!" instead of "HEY this place is empty, whats over here? nothing... whats over there? Nothing again? AND whats going on down here then guys?!?!"
More happens in this picture alone than it does in the entire movie
Granted when the action does actually show up, its a lot of fun, but that's because its so over the top and goofy that it creates a stark contrast to the rest of the boring movie. There's a scene where a monster shows up and starts beating the shit out of one of the RRST guys, who are space marines I guess, by grabbing him and whipping him at the wall like a wet rug before throwing him into a pit with electrified walls. The monster jumps down to get him and we see a bunch of crazy shit when the guy starts flying by on chains and whipping around computer monitors. There's lot of screaming, and people getting electrocuted, and I think he kicks the thing in the nuts. Its crazy. The guy's totally hard core, and since nothing has happened up until now, its kind of a shock.
I also think the acting is pretty good too. Or at least it's what it should be. The Rock does a good job of playing his role, switching from being a cool leader to being kind of a dick, while Karl Urban and the actress that plays his character's sister do a good job of bringing some extra depth to their characters that were probably written to be as 1 dimensional as everyone else in the movie. And you can't really fault the rest of the actors for being kind of unmemorable. Not when they are pretty much just there to get killed.
The Rock and his BFF gun
The best part of the movie is the first-person-shooter action scene, and while there are a few things to complain about, I think its pretty awesome. It pretty much single-handely saves the movie. In fact everything from that scene onward is awesome. We get a cool FPS action scene that leads into a confrontation with the Rock, another weird over the top fight scene that acts as the climax, and then a cool ending. It's like the third act was cut from a completely different movie and pasted at the end of a Sci-Fi Channel original movie. I mean SYFY... Though to be fair, the movie looks too good to be from the SYFY channel. In the end the movie looks pretty good, moves pretty good, has adaquett acting, and not bad directing. It's just that the pace and overall execution of the story pretty much undermines everything the movie has going for it, proving that even if everything is stop notch, you can't shine up shitty writing.
6 out of 10
