Dir. Neil Marshall, English, 2008
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Wed 3 November 2010 // 19:30
/ Cinema
"About twenty minutes into it I decided to pretend it was a long lost mid 80's film Marshall had dusted off and put his name on. Rob Gonsalves, EFilmCritic.Com
Scotland; the present . In one week, a mutated virus, "The Reaper Virus" devastates the city of Glasgow. Fearing the destruction of the United Kingdom parliament orders Scotland to be isolated from the rest of England by means of a coast to coast steel wall, mining the coastal waters and a strictly enforced no fly zone over Scottish airspace.
Those caught behind the wall are left to their own devices, anarchy, cannabilism and a facistic feudilism become the norm....
For thirty years this is the status quo, with the English department of domestic security assuming Scotland has become an empty desolate wasteland....
Then at roughly the same time, the virus re-emerges in London, as satellite photo's prove people have somehow survived in the walled off north, some must be immune to the virus! The D.D.S orders a team to go north and bring a survivor back to develop a vaccine.
For Doomsday Marshall worships at the altar of John Carpenter (Escape from New York) and George Miller (the Mad Max films) in his muscular tribute to these classic 80’s genre films. Actress Rhona Mitra channels the spirit of Kurt Russels “Snake Plisken” to create a strong, capable, kick ass heroine as team leader “Major Eden Mitchell”. The strongly Carpenter esque synth score, occasionally interrupted by 80’s Brit pop seals the deal. Some will be offended at the appropriations, but Carpenter and Miller aren’t making this sort of bash any more, and Marshall does it with verve and a clear love of the material.
CLIMAXING IN AN INSANE, SUPERBLY EDITED CAR CHASE, DOOMSDAY CONTAINS STRONG VIOLENCE, CANNIBALISM AND STRONG LANGUAGE! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! (...and a woman smoking!)
"Doomsday is, I think, a far more fun tribute to grindhouse than "Grindhouse" was; if someone at Rogue Pictures is smart, they’ll make the DVD packaging look like an old Vestron or Wizard videocassette. Complete with misleading cover art assuring you that Rhona Mitra gets naked (she doesn’t)." Rob Gonsalves, EFilmCritic.Com
"Get your Mad Max mutant-maniacs-in-monster-machines on." Kevin A. Ranson, MovieCrypt.com
"A bit like a medley of greatest hits performed by a hot, young talent who brings a new vocal inflection to the tired, old standards." Steve Biodrowski, cinefantastique
"Brimming with exploitation antics, grindhouse sensibilities and, heh heh, exploding bunnies, Doomsday conjures a future thrown back to the dead-end styles and amoral excesses of the eighties - and no future could be bleaker than that." Anton Bitel, musicOMH.com