Consumeroo

Doomsday by Tim on August 5th, 2008

The greatest thing about Doomsday is also the worst thing about it. The film is forever changing, mixing together bits of Aliens, 28 Days Later, Escape from L.A., Beyond Thunderdome (along with the entire Mad Max trilogy), Conan the Barbarian, The Andromeda Strain, James Bond, La Femme Nikita, Kill Bill, Lord of the Rings, Children of Men… and on and on and on.

Many of the mixed in bits are terrific send-ups of the original films, little bits of dialog scattered around (”Check those corners!”) and recreated shots or stunts. Doomsday knows that it’s too much of a mongrel to do any one thing expertly, an interesting reversal from Marshall’s last pic, tightly wound and needle sharp The Descent.

Sadly the rush to explore every possible element of this (potentially) rich world leaves the film stretched paper thin. Just as each homage gets really interesting the film rushes off to some other place, usually completely unrelated. The potential for interesting connections between these disparate elements is always there, but it’s never really put to use.

As I watched Doomsday I was grinning ear to ear, thrilled by each action piece, but when the end credits came, I felt hungry for some deeper explanation, some substance that I could take away and discuss with others. Instead, I can only look forward to Marshall’s next film and hope that it will do more with less.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 7:08 pm and is filed under See. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.