Review: Doomsday

Last night we looked to relax with a video from the local store and I wanted some mindless action. Pickings were slim but I choose Doomsday. My expectations were low but all I wanted was action, some scenery chewing bad guys, and to turn my mind off.

Amazingly, it failed to meet even my low standards.

First off, some good things. There was lots of action, the main bad guy was definitely chewing scenery like a mad man, and.... well that's it really.

Now the things I didn't like.

First off, a lot of movies nowadays using the "jumping camera" during action sequences to make the fighting seem more intense and fast paced than traditional steady cameras with long shots do. I get that; don't like it but I accept it. But in this movie the director felt that every scene needed five or six camera angles and that the scene should flip from each one every second, even when the characters were doing nothing but sitting and talking. It drove me insane, almost to the point where I shut it off. There is no reason for that crap.

Secondly, the back story was beyond unlikely into ludicrous a lot of the time. The political side story was pathetically moronic and could have been left out entirely IMHO. The walling off of Scotland with no one ever going in was obviously unrelated to anything resembling reality. And the whole medieval society that shows up in the middle of the movie was completely off the wall. I mean, yeah, I can see people reverting to older styles of government (in this case feudal) and tehcnologies (bows and arrows, horses, etc) but actually dressing and living like they were in the 1300s? I mean, come on! Get real.

Furthermore, the nuclear fallout shelter that everyone appeared to know about but no one bothered to plunder? Sheesh, can you say plot device? And one last thing: even a devolved, barbaric, cannibalistic society knows that you don't cook people while they are still wearing their clothes. All the plastic will just poison the meat. Sigh.

Anyways, all these little things disrupted my enjoyment of the movie to the point where I wish I hadn't rented it. I wanted a simple post-apocalyptic romp and instead got a convoluted and wandering story and poorly directed camera work. Better off left on the shelves, or in the garbage bin.