Doomdiddy Doom!!

I got to watch the last 25 minutes or so of the Doom movie last night. Here are my thoughts.

- The dialogue is hokey and forced. The kind of lines that you know must be said, but can be written (and delivered) in a better way. The best performance was from the Rock, but even that was just par for the course in Hollywood.

- ridiculous story. Something about finding a magic portal that leads to a city on Mars (how that is explained, I can only guess), and experiments are done on people that have something to do with the 24th chromosome. Now I need a Biology expert to back me up on this, but isn't that just Downs Syndrome? On the other hand, Doom's target audience is probably the last group of people who would care about that.

- I didn't get to see much action, but I did catch the First Person Scene. I'll be honest with all of you; it was pretty neat. The game is the first person shooter. Why the hell not have an homage to it? The only problem I had with this part is that I think it could have been done better. It felt slow and plodding, when it should be fast and intense.

So were the cool nerds right about the film? Yes in that Doom is not a piece of incredibly fine cinema. But I think a lot of people were overexaggerating about how bad it is. Despite everything I've said about it, Doom is no better or worse than your typical summer action film. And considering the source material, I don't see how anyone could expect it to be anything more than that. This is Doom people. Its not exactly the most gripping narrative in the history of gaming. While I do think that it would have been better if the story revolved around opening the gates of hell, even this wouldn't have made it that much better. And if you compare it next to House of the Dead or Alone in the Dark, I'd say the Doom movie did well enough for itself.

I'd place Doom in the same category as Advent Children; lots of crazy setpieces, some stuff to please the fanboys, and not a lot of strong story or characters. If that's all you expect, you won't be dissapointed. And if you expected more, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you should read some manga or something?:p