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| Their mission is simple: search-and-destroy, to eliminate the threat, secure the facility, and retrieve UAC property. They set off and quickly locate Dr. Carmack who is disturbed to the point of tearing off his own ear. They return him to the lab, and Dr. Grimm tries to sedate him. John converses with his sister and learns that they have discovered humanoid remains on Mars that contain a 24th ] that made the creatures superhuman, invulnerable to disease and with the ability to regenerate quickly. Meanwhile, the Marines continue to explore the facility, encountering strange creatures intent on killing them. One of the creatures, an ''Imp'', succeeds in slaying one of the Marines, but is promptly killed and brought to Dr. Grimm. From blood samples taken from two hostile creatures, it is determined that their genetic makeup has been altered by the artificial addition of the 24th ]; however, the injected chromosome seems to "choose" whether or not the result causes the person to be superhuman or a monster, using what Dr. Grimm believes to be the unmapped 10% of the ], and latching onto what could be a gene that predestines people to be evil. Consequently, the chromosome is classified as an ], which is later spread by the projectile tongues of those infected. | Their mission is simple: search-and-destroy, to eliminate the threat, secure the facility, and retrieve UAC property. They set off and quickly locate Dr. Carmack who is disturbed to the point of tearing off his own ear. They return him to the lab, and Dr. Grimm tries to sedate him. John converses with his sister and learns that they have discovered humanoid remains on Mars that contain a 24th ] that made the creatures superhuman, invulnerable to disease and with the ability to regenerate quickly. Meanwhile, the Marines continue to explore the facility, encountering strange creatures intent on killing them. One of the creatures, an ''Imp'', succeeds in slaying one of the Marines, but is promptly killed and brought to Dr. Grimm. From blood samples taken from two hostile creatures, it is determined that their genetic makeup has been altered by the artificial addition of the 24th ]; however, the injected chromosome seems to "choose" whether or not the result causes the person to be superhuman or a monster, using what Dr. Grimm believes to be the unmapped 10% of the ], and latching onto what could be a gene that predestines people to be evil. Consequently, the chromosome is classified as an ], which is later spread by the projectile tongues of those infected. | ||
| Through multiple attacks by the imps, the squad is reduced to just Sarge, Reaper, The Kid (]), Duke (]) and Dr. Grimm. They realize that despite their best efforts, a larger monster called "The Baron" (presumed to be the original infection) has escaped to Earth through the ''Ark''. Before leaving, Sarge takes the Bio Force Gun (BFG) (commonly referred to in the game, and in the movie by Sarge as the "Big Fucking Gun"). | Through multiple attacks by the imps, the squad is reduced to just Sarge, Reaper, The Kid (]), Duke (]) and Dr. Grimm. They realize that despite their best efforts, a larger monster called "The Baron" (presumed to be the original infection) has escaped to Earth through the ''Ark''. Before leaving, Sarge takes the ] (BFG) (commonly referred to in the game, and in the movie by Sarge as the "]"). | ||
| ]) and "Goat" shown on the right (played by ]).]] | ]) and "Goat" shown on the right (played by ]).]] | ||
Revision as of 20:17, 29 April 2007
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| Doom | |
|---|---|
| File:Doommovieposter.jpg | |
| Directed by | Andrzej Bartkowiak |
| Written by | Dave Callaham Wesley Strick |
| Produced by | Lorenzo di Bonaventura Laura Holstein John D. Schofield Jeremy Steckler John Wells (Executive Producer) |
| Starring | Karl Urban The Rock Ben Daniels Rosamund Pike Yao Chin |
| Music by | Clint Mansell |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release dates |  October 21, 2005 December 2, 2005 |
| Running time | 1 hour 38 minutes 1 hour 53 minutes (USA Unrated DVD) |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $70,000,000 |
Doom is a 2005 movie adaptation of the popular Doom series of video games produced by id Software. The movie was released October 21, 2005, in the United States, and on December 2, 2005, in the United Kingdom.
On February 7, 2006, the unrated DVD for Doom was officially released. The unrated DVD has a running time of 1 hour 53 minutes, which suggests that 15 minutes of footage were removed for the rated release.
A movie based on the series had been widely expected since the first game's original release in 1993. In 1994 or 1995, id Software sold Doom movie rights to two movie studios, reportedly Universal Pictures and Columbia Pictures, but the rights expired apparently due to a lack of timely production. For the next eight or nine years, the movie project lingered in development hell. In 2002, it was reported that Warner Brothers acquired live action movie rights to Doom from id Software. Sometime in 2003, Warner Brothers lost the rights, and they were subsequently given to Universal Pictures; Universal got the movie moved into production in 2004.
In a interview with executive producer John Wells, he stated that a second Doom movie could be created if the first was a success in the box office. Ticket sales for the opening weekend totaled more than 15.3 million USD, but promptly dropped down to approximately $4.2 million, which mystified Universal executives.
The basic plot of the movie is quite similar to Aliens in that a small group of space marines go to investigate a deserted facility on another planet, and do battle with vicious creatures until only a few are left who must fight to escape alive.
The film has been rated R in the United States by the MPAA for strong violence/gore and language. The DVD release of Doom is unrated.
Plot overview
The film begins on Mars in 2046, in a research facility at a location known as Olduvai where scientists are running for their lives. One by one, they are grabbed and pulled into the darkness, screaming in terror. One of the doctors, Dr. Carmack, manages to get in a security room and begins to shut the door. Another scientist yells at him to keep the doors open for her, but he allows them to close, trapping her arm between the doors. She yells in agony as something grabs her, pushes her upwards, and pulls her from the door, severing her arm. As the doctor sends an SOS rescue signal, the "thing" breaks through the door, growls and stares at the doctor, and the scene fades out.
On Earth, a team of elite special ops Marines has their leave interrupted by Sarge (The Rock), who has recieved a call from Olduvai. As the men suit up, Sarge pulls aside one of his men, John Grimm (Karl Urban), and asks him not to go, but Grimm (also known as Reaper) suits up anyway, and their team is deployed to Mars, via a teleportation device called the Ark, located in Nevada. The Ark was discovered in 2026, and for twenty years scientists have been trying to discover who built it, and why. Upon arriving at the Mars research facility of the Union Aerospace Corporation (or UAC), they meet a victim of the Ark travel, Pinky (Dexter Fletcher), who had his legs severed by the Ark during an early attempt to use it. They meet up with Dr. Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike), John's sister, who explains the situation.
Their mission is simple: search-and-destroy, to eliminate the threat, secure the facility, and retrieve UAC property. They set off and quickly locate Dr. Carmack who is disturbed to the point of tearing off his own ear. They return him to the lab, and Dr. Grimm tries to sedate him. John converses with his sister and learns that they have discovered humanoid remains on Mars that contain a 24th chromosome that made the creatures superhuman, invulnerable to disease and with the ability to regenerate quickly. Meanwhile, the Marines continue to explore the facility, encountering strange creatures intent on killing them. One of the creatures, an Imp, succeeds in slaying one of the Marines, but is promptly killed and brought to Dr. Grimm. From blood samples taken from two hostile creatures, it is determined that their genetic makeup has been altered by the artificial addition of the 24th chromosome; however, the injected chromosome seems to "choose" whether or not the result causes the person to be superhuman or a monster, using what Dr. Grimm believes to be the unmapped 10% of the human genome, and latching onto what could be a gene that predestines people to be evil. Consequently, the chromosome is classified as an infection, which is later spread by the projectile tongues of those infected.
Through multiple attacks by the imps, the squad is reduced to just Sarge, Reaper, The Kid (Al Weaver), Duke (Razaaq Adoti) and Dr. Grimm. They realize that despite their best efforts, a larger monster called "The Baron" (presumed to be the original infection) has escaped to Earth through the Ark. Before leaving, Sarge takes the Bio Force Gun (BFG) (commonly referred to in the game, and in the movie by Sarge as the "Big Fucking Gun").
On Earth, the group finds the UAC facility full of bodies. Sarge orders that everyone breathing must be killed to prevent infection from spreading. The Kid finds a group of living, non-infected humans and reports this to Sarge. He argues that the order should be rescinded ("Go to hell"), but Sarge responds by saying that violating the CO's order is punishable by death and shoots The Kid for insubordination. The group continues through the facility until Duke is killed during a major assault by zombies. In addition to Duke's death, and Sarge being dragged away by the zombies, Reaper is hit by a ricocheting bullet. Consequently, to save his life, Dr. Grimm injects Reaper with Chromosome 24. This turns him into a superhuman, causing his injuries to heal almost instantly, and endowing him with incredible strength and speed.
Following Reaper's change, the movie takes on its first-person shooter perspective strongly resembling Doom 3 in terms of environment, creatures, and game play. While slaying the remaining monsters, Reaper is attacked by Pinky, who has mutated into a monster (referred to in the game as The Pinky Demon). Reaper kills him with a chainsaw. At the exit of the facility, Reaper finds a large mass of bodies and a blue burning hole in the wall, the mark of a BFG blast.
Near this hole, Reaper encounters Sarge and an unconscious Dr. Grimm lying on the floor. Reaper asks Sarge what happened to the non-infected survivors, and he reveals that he has killed them, remarking "We're all killers, Reaper. It's what they pay us to do." Reaper then notices the same injury on Sarge that Dr. Carmack had before he turned into an Imp. After Dr. Grimm escapes Sarge's clutches, the two Marines face off, with Reaper shooting Sarge and dodging a BFG shot from him. The two engage in hand-to-hand combat. The transformation of Sarge to an Imp becomes noticable during the fight, but eentually Reaper prevails by throwing Sarge into the Ark, exclaiming, "like The Kid said: go to hell". Reaper tosses in a grenade after it, and the Ark locks down, preventing further travel and appearing to seal the fate of both Sarge and the UAC Mars facility. Reaper then retrieves Dr. Grimm, who is still unconscious, and holds her in his arms as he uses the elevator to return to the Earth's surface.
Cast
Marines
Karl Urban as John "Reaper" Grimm/Doomguy : The protagonist of the film. He joined the military after the death of his parents on Mars during his childhood.
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Sergeant "Sarge" Mahonin: The squad leader. Sarge is a professional marine who appears to have a good relationship with the men in his squad.
Raz Adoti as "Duke" : A smart-aleck who ends up hitting on Samantha, who seems to mildly return his interest.
Deobia Oparei as Gannon "Destroyer" Roark: The squad's stoic heavy weapons specialist.
Yao Chin as Katsuhiko Kumanosuke "Mac" Takaashi: Enigmatic, mostly silent, this baseball-loving marine is left behind to defend the Ark.
Al Weaver as "The Kid" Dantalian: The newest member of the squad, The Kid is green and inexperienced, much to Sarge's chagrin.
Richard Brake as Corporal Dean Portman: A somewhat depraved and lecherous member of the squad.
Ben Daniels as Eric "Goat" Fantom: A quiet, extremely religious man who cuts himself whenever he uses God's name in vein. It was hinted that he served time in prison. "Goat" is played by Laurence Olivier Theatre Award winning British actor Ben Daniels.
Civilians
Rosamund Pike as Dr. Samantha Grimm: A scientist on Mars, and John Grimm's sister. Conducting archaeological research on the Martian civilization, she is assigned by UAC to accompany the marines and retrieve Dr. Carmack's research data.
Dexter Fletcher as Marcus "Pinky" Pinzerowski : A nervous technician on Mars assigned to coordinate the squad's communications. Pinky has no lower body and is attached to a cybernetic wheel-chair, due to a teleportation accident while using the Ark (Reaper tells the Kid "He went to one galaxy, his ass went to another"). He is named for the Pinky Demon from the Doom games, which he eventually becomes near the end of the film (the transformation is not seen, but the results are).
Robert Russell as Dr. Carmack: The base's chief scientist, Carmack's unethical experimentations in genetic engineering ultimately lead to the death of everyone on Mars. The demon attack leaves him catatonic, and he ultimately transforms into a monster.
Vladislav Dyntera as Dr. Willits: Another scientist who ultimately ends up altered and killed. An obvious reference to Tim Willits.
Daniel York as Lt. Huengs: The leader of all security forces on Mars.
Sara Houghton as Dr. Jenna Willits: Dr. Willits' wife, she first takes a blood sample from Carmack and is the first one to see that his blood was different.
Brian Steele as Hell Knight (Baron of Hell)/Curtis Stahl: A psychopathic mass murderer slated for death row. Dr. Carmack somehow got access to him to test the new 24th Chromosome on.
Production
The film's producer, John Wells, admitted in an interview that "many" video game movie adaptations had "sucked." He revealed that the crew was able to get "a lot of financial support from Universal" and that it wasn't "done on the cheap." Wells also revealed that the Doom movie would have a sequence shot in a first-person perspective because "Doom without that would be a miscarriage of justice!"
Wells also revealed that "we were all very concerned that we make sure that it was exactly the kind of experience that we remembered so fondly from the game: turning the lights off at midnight, cranking it up and scaring the hell out of yourself!"
Wells further stated that there is a balance between CGI and prosthetics in the Doom movie, and he, for the first time as a producer, admitted that "we didn't wanna rely on the CGI. Those effects still haven't quite got to the level where you fully believe it - certainly not for long periods of time," and that the crew used Stan Winston's Creature Shop and that his work is only "enhanced with CGI." He also admitted that "if you rely too much on CGI it can look cheesy: it doesn't quite work. It'll get there, but it's not there yet."
Wells also stated that the crew insisted that the Doom movie be made into an R-rated movie and that he didn't "think it was possible to do a PG-13 version — and that's been the mistake made by a couple of other computer game movies," and that "a lot of studios that didn't want to do it. But we made a conscious decision that we'd prefer not to make it any other way."
Wells also revealed that if this first Doom film is successful, a second one could be made, and he revealed that "we certainly have some ideas for the next one, if there is gonna be one. We'll have to wait and see: the audience will have to tell us..."
One of the most noteworthy aspects of the movie is a short sequence near the end of the film where the camera follows the progress of Grimm from a first-person perspective in homage to the original game. In the words of Karl Urban, the actor who plays Reaper:
- "In some ways, it makes cinematic history in that, for the first time, the audience becomes the hero of the film."
- "When we go into FPS, the audience is doing the rampage, the audience is doing the work and that is so cool. It’s insane!"
Production history
- November 27 2003, Computer Gaming World printed an article on their website regarding the Doom movie. It states that Warner Brothers is indeed working on the Doom movie and has placed it on the fast track. A revised script was submitted to id Software and approved; John Wells (producer of ER) and Lorenzo Bonaventura (who introduced The Matrix to Warner Brothers) have signed on to work on the Doom movie. Concept art and storyboards have been drawn by Federico D'Alessandro, who has worked on various movies, music videos, and video game covers and advertisements.
- May 15 2004, the Associated Press (AP) released a news article regarding video game to movie adaptations that can be found here: Hollywood Interest in Video Games Grows that mentions the Doom movie. Here's an excerpt that mentions the Doom movie: "Soon, more blockbuster game franchises, such as Halo and Doom, are expected to become the basis of movies."
- June 2 2004, Variety reported that Warner Brothers has lost the rights to the Doom movie and Universal Studios has acquired rights to the Doom movie and Variety confirms that the Doom movie will be based on Doom 3.
- June 4 2004, IMDb Pro reported that Warner Brothers has lost the rights to the Doom movie and that Universal Studios has picked up the rights also that Enda McCallion has been signed on as the director.
- August 9 2004, A Doom 3 article in an issue of Time Magazine mentions that Universal is set to film the Doom movie in Prague in the winter of 2004-2005.
- August 15 2004, The Hollywood Reporter reported that John Wells Productions is currently in pre-production for the Doom movie.
- August 18 2004, a website, Box Office Prophets, made the Doom movie project their movie of the day and they list the release date for the Doom movie, August 5 2005. The article also confirms that Universal has Doom on a production schedule of Winter 2004-2005 in Prague's Barrandov Studios. The article can be found here: Doom. The planned release date was mentioned as August 5 2005.
- August 10 2004, The Hollywood Reporter released an article that mentioned release dates for 8 movies and the third movie listed was the Doom movie. It states that Doom will have a wide release on August 5 2005.
- September 15 2004, major news has been revealed by both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter on the Doom movie. Karl Urban has been cast for the Doom movie as the star, John Grimm, a leader of a special ops team. It has been revealed that he will dealing not only with alien demons but also the organization known as the United Aerospace Corp. that is responsible for the death of his parents. It has also been revealed that Enda McCallion has dropped out of the project and Polish director Andrzej Bartkowiak has signed on to be the director. It has also been revealed that production will start in Mid-October with an August 5 2005 release date. Also noted is that Universal Pictures is talking to The Rock regarding a role in the Doom movie.
- September 22 2004, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Universal Pictures has cast Rosamund Pike opposite of Karl Urban as a scientist named Samantha.
Reception
Doom has received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics, with Rotten Tomatoes exhibiting a freshness rating of 19% (17% from 'Cream of the Crop' critics) for the film. The Internet Movie Database currently shows the film with a weighed average score of 5.2 out of 10.
According to the box office, the film made $56 million as a total for both overseas and North American release. The possibility of a sequel now depends on DVD sales.
Awards and nominations
2005 Golden Raspberry Awards, one nomination:
- Worst Actor (The Rock)
References
- "Interview with Karl Urban". Empire Online. Retrieved February 25.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - "'Doom's' day for Pike with Universal Pics". Hollywood Reporter.
- "Doom reviews". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved February 24.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - "Doom at IMDB". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved February 24.
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External links
- Official site
- Doom at IMDb
- Doom at Rotten Tomatoes
- Doom at Box Office Mojo
- Movie trailers
- Movie Trailer
- A report from Comic-Con with information from a panel of the cast and crew
- An Interview with Karl Urban about the film
- An Interview with Doom Executive Producer John Wells
- The Doug Jones Experience - behind the scenes
- The Doug Jones Experience - DOOM Journal
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