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I think it’s safe to say that so far the upcoming video game adaptation, DOOM: ANNIHILATION has opened its own little portal to hell (har har), since at the time of writing it sits at 300 likes to over 3,000 dislikes on YouTube. This is exactly the kind of reaction that makes people look back at The Rock’s 2005 version more fondly. I don’t remember that version very well (except for the first-person sequence, which was super cool and I have no doubt holds up today), but this new take looks surprisingly flimsy. Normally I try to look away from the hate, especially with my fondness for B-movies, but this is super rough.
The costumes look bad, the monsters are barely present, the effects are cheap, blood is lacking, and it has the least convincing “Die! Die! Die!” I’ve heard in my life. This could all be down to the bad trailer–and this is quite a bad trailer. It clips through each moment in that aggravatingly frenetic style with longer shots on dramatic text than the actual movie. The only saving grace here is a dude saying with ponderous weight, “I opened a portal to hell.” That’s what I want to hear.
For what it’s worth, DOOM: ANNIHILATION is set to be a sequel to the original film. Not that it matters much. I don’t think we’ll see any cameos from the original, and the fact that ANNIHILATION is interested in riding on its reputation only adds to the dubious quality of the film. The plot naturally sees a group of marines who arrive at a base on a martian moon to find that everything’s fucked up, and demons are everywhere that need to be made dead.
My main issue with this interpretation of DOOM is that it looks like they’re aiming to make a horror movie out of it. DOOM isn’t really about helplessness and weakness. It’s like the anti-Alien. It’s about tearing through monsters like newspaper and feeling really good when you look back at all the gore and viscera you’ve left behind. We need a movie that’s something like the 2016 version of the game where it’s almost all just nonstop monster destruction with very little story connecting it. You don’t need story for this. We get it. There are hellbeasts on Mars and someone has to clean up. We just want neat monsters, shit exploding, and plenty of blood. I have a sinking feeling that this will miss the point. Chances are this is being made more to retain a license than to make something awesome–which is a shame. There are a lot of great directors who I’m sure would jump at the chance to make a kickass DOOM adaptation. The game is an instantly recognizable institution that deserves the blockbuster treatment.
What’s the guy who did Hardcore Henry up to? All we need is Hardcore Henry but with demons. Can we have that? Please? Pretty please?
Maybe we can the next time the rights are about to expire.
