Having not had the experience of becoming enamored with original DOOM back in the ‘90s, my perspective on the seminal first person shooter series is rooted instead in id Software’s incredible reboot trilogy that began in 2016. So it’s even more fascinating to revisit the era of DOOM where the wholesale metal heavy demon slaughter was dialed back in favor of creeping survival horror dread, where 2004’s DOOM 3 was defined less by bloodbaths and frantic bullet mayhem and more by moody lighting effects and interactive computer screens.
Playing DOOM 3 for the first time a few years ago was a fun little time capsule to a lost era, a game that is “a product of its time for sure, but nevertheless one that sort of begins and ends with itself.” Other than the bare essentials it did not take much from the series history, nor did it go on to influence any other DOOM title after it. Indeed, it wasn’t until 2016 that the franchise would even be revisited in earnest.
So it’s not surprising that DOOM the movie, released just a year after DOOM 3, slots itself into this slower one-off corridor crawl territory, but what is surprising are the swings it takes with the canon. These are UAC facilities and personnel, and some recognizable enemies appear, but they are not demons pouring over to our side from Hell. Rather, some scientists have conducted DNA experiments using extra-chromosomal Martian DNA that can sense someone’s morality and if they’re evil it turns them into demonic monsters… something like that. It’s mainly an excuse for The Rock and Karl Urban to shoulder some rifles and tactically move down dimly lit hallways, alongside a cadre of other marine types who range from forgettable to woefully unlikable.
The first half of DOOM is alarmingly inert, as the squad pursues a single foe and deals with some zombies along the way. It’s more Resident Evil than DOOM, making the appearance (and subsequent underwhelming use of) the BFG feel like something that was thrown in when somebody remembered what movie they were making. Eventually the action does pick up and it’s fine.
Of course there’s the infamous first-person sequence near the end, the only thing I could ever recall seeing from this movie in years past, and boy is it nauseating! I kinda appreciate what they wanted to do here but the entire segment looks like a light gun game with the FOV cranked up to the maximum motion sickness value.
But you know, DOOM ain’t terrible. You better believe I went into this expecting the worst action schlock video game adaptation only the mid-2000s could’ve produced, and yet its worse offense is that it’s occasionally dull. Maybe that’s a big offense for a movie based on the DOOM series of all things, but this is a good bit away from the kind of Uwe Boll nightmare that I assumed this was going to be.
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