Have you noticed how films nowadays are either based off of something or are remakes? I’m kind of leaning toward the idea that the film industry has run out of ideas. Unsurprisingly, this week’s movie review is no different. ‘Doom’ happens to be based off of a video game, yet it was not too shabby. Granted, I have never actually played the game, so this is completely unbiased from that point of view.

At a remote scientific research station on Mars, the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), mass chaos breaks out. They have a level five quarantine in action and call on a group of Marines with the hope that they can bring the mayhem under control. This team of tough soldiers includes Reaper (Karl Urban), Destroyer (Deobia Oparei), Mac (Yao Chin), Goat (Ben Daniels), Duke (Razaaq Adoti), Portman (Richard Brake), The Kid (Al Weaver) and their leader Sarge (The Rock).

They all try and bring things under control, but things are not quite what they seem. Dead keep coming back to life (i.e. zombies) and killing innocent people. Dr. Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike), Reaper’s twin sister, soon figures out why all of this madness continues. Is it too late though? I will let you figure that one out on your own.

‘Doom’ was enjoyable and worthy of another viewing or two. But some of the acting was disappointing. The Rock just does not seem to appear real. His character just developed rather quickly and there wasn’t a real strong connection between him and the audience. I found it interesting that the other characters did a much better job at this.

One thing that was cool to see was the point-of-view of Reaper in the end. It actually felt like you were playing a video game, just on a much bigger screen. Looking over the barrel of the gun and trekking along the corridors gave the film a fresh perspective.

I just cannot find the way to really express the effectiveness of this. Maybe it is partially because I am not sure if it was a strength or weakness of the film.

Overall, ‘Doom’ was a decent film. If you have played the video game, you may not like it all that much. However, going into it blindly helped to keep things entertaining. I will leave it up to you to go and see it because it is hard to say if you will like it or not.

In the end, it boils down to your personal interpretation and criticism of the film.

‘Doom’ is rated R for violent elements and runs approximately 100 minutes.