30 Second Movie Review: Doomsday

So,

Awesome called. Awesome called and it said you should watch Doomsday.

And you know what?

Awesome was right.

This is the kind of movie that I absolutely would have loved as 13 year old. There would have been multiple viewings, armed with a VCR control, to capture every glorious beheading and graphic fight scene in the film. The tape would have lasted about six months before I’d have worn it out.

And it would have been glorious.

Even as a 29 year old I think this movie is pretty goddamn fun. It name checks a lot of my favourite classic horror and genre movies from the past 20 years like Aliens, 28 Days Later, Underworld, Escape from New York and The Road Warrior. It’s like these films were dropped into a blender and Doomsday is the end result. The acting is barely passable, the story and visuals absolutely cliché ridden and you’ll absolutely destroy your brain if you seriously try to make sense of anything you see on screen. (There is a serious cow overpopulation in this film and yet cannibalism is rappant)

Directed by Neil Marshall, of The Descent and Dog Soldiers fame, this movie doesn’t care what you think about it. With a plot grafted onto the thinnest of premises, futuristic soldiers must enter an apocalyptic wasteland in search of a cure for a deadly disease that threatens all of mankind, it’s really just an excuse for the director to throw whatever he thinks will look cool up on the screen. Thankfully he’s got a vivid imagination so movie goers, ill advisedly expecting coherency from this story, won’t have to wait long before the next little bit of eye candy pops up to keep them entertained.

There’s no point in even trying to do a straight forward review of this film. It works hard at not taking itself seriously. If you’re looking for insightful social commentary or hidden levels of meaning, you’ll never find it here. A potboiler, in the purest sense, Doomsday is all about turning your brain off for a little while and remembering what its like to be a kid again.

Hells yeah.