Doomsday Reviews

[Highly rated reviewer]

Mad Max on Irn Bru

This is ridiculous, indulgent, derivative, and oh so much fun. What happens, do you think, when you rebuild Hadrian's Wall to contain a killer virus epidemic in Glasgow? Well, 30 years later Glasgow has become crumbled and overgrown, and the surviving population have reverted to barbarism... think Saturday night on Sauchihall St with cannibalism thrown in. Other factions have retreated to the highlands and holed up in old Historic Scotland castles and are recreating a new form of vicious feudalism.

The small touches are the best here, like the fact you can still catch glimpses of the old Historic Scotland interpretative plaques and fire exit signs in the castles, or the way the Mad Max-style auto convoy of the Glasgow punk cannibals is made up of Glasgow cabs, delivery vans and buses (with the words 'out of f*cking service' scrawled on the front). There's lots of attention to detail that folk living in Scotland will really get a kick out of, if they can forgive the initial premise that all it takes is a apocalyptic disaster for the Scots to return to their natural savage state.

I loved this so much because it was like a 'best of' of all my favourite films and characters. Don't go expecting anything startling, challenging or original, but if you want chuckles and entertainment... enjoy.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Escape from Mad Max II

An absolute travesty of a film,which plunders unashamedly,and without irony from several well known genre favourites. How on earth did Neil Marshall get this one past the money men? Even the high body count and the totally over the top gore won't save this from the bargain bin hell it deserves. I haven't bothered mentioning the storyline or the plot because if you've seen any 'Mad Max' film,'Aliens', 'Escape from New York' etc you'll have seen this

dud too.

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[Highly rated reviewer]

Nothing new...but utter fun!

Neil Marshall continues his exploration of the letter D with this, his third film (his last two being Dog Soldiers and Descent). This time inspiration for the film came to him when journeying back and forth to Scotland, passing the remains of Hadrian's Wall. Wondering what would ever lead to another wall being built like that, he then imagined a knight in armour battling a biker. Thus was lain the seeds for Doomsday!

In the first quarter of 2008 an outbreak of a disease began in Scotland. Deadly fatal, and extremely contagious, no cure could be developed fast enough and so the whole country was placed under quarantine. A huge wall was built, and those inside were simply left to die. Now, in the year 2035 a new outbreak of the disease has struck inner-city London. Satellite surveillance shows signs of survivors in Scotland, and so a team is sent in to find a cure. What they find there is a society that has broken down into two distinct factions, one violent and brutal punk natured, the other medieval in nature....

Doomsday feels like Marshall is simply plundering his favourite films of his youth, and crafting a 'best of' movie. The film lifts heavily from films such as Mad Max, Aliens, Escape From New York, and even The Last Boy Scout (well, one small scene at least). If you feel that you may have seen it before, then you probably have, as we see a team of soldiers suddenly attacked and 'falling back to the APC', or a chase sequence on a long stretch of road with punked-up vehicles chasing a sleek black car. Aye, there is little in here that is original, but that doesn't matter too much as it is the melding of all the elements into one story which makes it almost fresh.

Marshall wastes no time in dragging you into the madness of the film, with the opening scenes of riots and carnage as Scotland is closed laying the foundation of blood and gore that the rest of the film will follow. The gloriously over-the-top nature of the action and blood is reminiscent of Marshall's excellent Dog Soldiers, and the level of humour is also similar. Forget the seriously over-rated Descent - this is what Marshall does best, and it makes for a slick ride of a film at under 2 hours running time.

This is one of those films that I will enjoy watching again and again, reveling in the carnage and mayhem throughout, much as I do with the primary influence, Mad Max. Bloody and brilliant.

Derivative junk

Nothing wrong with bering derivative if you're also being entertaining, but this is just boring. As others have said - starts off like Aliens with the assault vehicles, then turns into the Beyond Thunderdome Mad Max movie. Save your time and watch something else.

[Highly rated reviewer]

toss

Pure unaldutarated toss. The acting, the plot and worst of all the editing are an absolute joke.

I really am lost for words. Worst film i've seen this year, and i watch a lot of goddam movies.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Neil Marshall was ABDUCTED!

What happened was this.... after he made the wonderful 'The Descent', some aliens came from outer space and took Neil Marshall away, replacing him with a clone. The clone is not very sophisticated, therefore can only perform the most perfunctory of tasks such as eating sleeping, shaking hands and saying 'My name is Neil Marshall' in a monotone voice.

So greedy and up their own a**es are the money men/women in the UK film industry they didn't notice this when they asked 'Neil Marshall' to write and direct another movie.

So the clone, who had of course never even seen a movie let alone written one, quickly set about watching successful sci-fi / horror movies of recent years in order to equip itself with all the necessary tools to write and direct one.

The clone presented the finished 'script' to the money men who, ordinarily would have thrown it in the bin after reading the first ten pages. Except they said 'Heh... Neil Marshall wrote it - it must be good, right?'.

Then the clone set about directing it, again having watched some movies and a few music videos from the 1980s to boot.

By the time the money men realised they had entrusted a film production in the hands of a clone it was way too late - they had already spent too much money and there was no going back. So they employed an editor to try to fix the mess in front of them. ( They took no chances this time and made the editor answer a series of questions - a la Blade Runner - to make sure he was human ). He passed, but he still couldn't fix the film and actually made it even more of a mess.

The moral of this story? There isn't one. It's happened before and will happen again.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Dont waste your time!

Im not suprised Scotland isnt happy about this film, I only gave it 2 stars because some of the acting was reasonable and needs recognition. If you are going to watch it firstly ask yourself. What's the point of 2 inches of steel when the windscreen is made from normal glass? And how exactly does a scrapyard car compete with a Bentley Continental GT with a top speed of 195 mph? And one more question...an unused Bentley battery lasts how long?!! If you think my review contains a spoiler, dont worry about it the film spoiled itself!

[Highly rated reviewer]

Doomsday

If you like Resident Evil / Dog Soldiers / I Am Legend / 28 Days Later (with a bit of Mad Max thrown in for good measure!) you will love this film!!

Action packed from start to finish, plenty of scary moments, and eye candy in the form of the female lead. Superb!

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Possibly the worst film ever?

Starts off well, bit like 28 weeks later, lots of gore and drama .... so all looking good..... BUT it soon turns into some of the most unbelievably drivel I've ever seen in a movie - think Mad Max and Robin Hood combined .... why actors like Bob Hoskins ever got involved I'll never know. The cheese did make us chuckle a bit, but we finally turned it off when Malcolm McDowell turned into the Sheriff of Nottingham .......

Seriously, do yourself a favour and avoid this like the plague (get the pun!), if you like 28 ... Later and some of the other big budget zombie style films out recently you'll hate this .... garbage.

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[Highly rated reviewer]

Doomsday

I really don't know where to start with this Neil Marshall offering but this one is a crazy ride from start to finish. Not well received by the critics because for once I think they've taken the whole thing too seriously and not looked past the fact that Marshall is ripping off so many films (I lost count but will return to that later) having the time of his life doing it , and taking us along for the ride, and I for one relished every minute of it. Scotland 2007 has been gripped by the Reaper Virus the british government decide to seal the country off totally with a huge mechanical steel wall , a no fly zone, and sea patrols. Enter Katherine Sinclair (Emma Cleasby) and her young daughter who race to the wall before it closes but it's chaos, her daughter gets injured and in a split second moment a soldier gives up his place on the last helicopter allowing her daughter to be taken but leaving Katherine and the soldier behind to an unknown fate. Skip forward 2035 and Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) the very same young child from the helicopter is now part of a crack government squad who are attached to the police and her boss is no nonsense, straight talking Bill Nelson (Bob Hoskins) . Law and order is breaking down and the fabric of what's left of the UK is in tatters, coupled with the fact there have been sporadic outbreaks of the Reaper Virus which is putting the fear of god into the government . Eden is called in and given top secret information that film footage has come out of Scotland showing people on the streets, and she is given the task of taking a hand picked crack team into Gasgow to see if a cure for the virus can be found. This is where the fun starts as we see a mixture of 28 Days later , Gladiator , Braveheart , Escape to New York, Mad Max , Lord of the Rings , The Warriors and all manner of similar films being gloriously ripped of in one way or another. Two factions have split one led by a mad doctor known as Kane (Malcolm Mc Dowell ) who has taken to the highlands and is leading an almost medieval lifestyle in a scottish castle , the others are cannabalistic punks led by the manaical and never to be forgotten Sol (Craig Conway) who roam the streets of Glasgow like some huge urban army. Eden and her crew encounter both factions as we see an edge of seat, helter skelter ride unfold that includes car chases, horseback rides, arena fights and all manner of fun as the chase is well and truly on to find an antidote. Not for the fainthearted it has violence by the bucket load, one scene in particuler involving Eden made me feel a tad uncomfortable, that said she is a kick ass heroine who dominates every scene she is in , and for pure entertainment value you can't fault it . Even the music is just hilarious and at juxtaposition with the whole thing as we see the likes of Fine Young Cannibals, Kasabian and Frankie goes to Hollywood tipping up to entertain us. It won't be everyone's proverbial cup of tea for sure, and there are faults aplenty, but it's such a 'provocative frenzy' of a film to watch I came out of the cinema with a feeling of 'What in god's name have I just witnessed'? and ' I just want to go back in and watch it all again' Mr Marshall I salute you, you've have taken the out and out bizarre and made it watchable with your tongue firmly in your cheek ..............In a word.......... Crazy!