Mad Maxine and Beyond Thunderdome…
I became a fan of Neil Marshall when I caught Dog Soldiers on Sci-Fi.
His second movie called The Descent had the dubious honor of having a copy cat called The Cave. The Descent had better casting, story, cinematography and the poster of the heroine covered in blood screaming at the top of her lungs is iconic enough.
That being said, seeing the Doomsday trailer, I thought it’s Mad Maxine! And, so did Paul C, even before I even uttered the words to him.
If this movie started off with the idea of how far a civilization can decay when locked up and forgotten about for entire generation ala The Village it degraded to a one note apocalyptic Mad Max rip off with a dash of MTV/Michael Bay editing and side order of stupidness.
The few bright points are Bob Hoskins, Alexander Siddig and money shots that were worth the $10 bbq, bacon, hamburger I ate at The Abbey trying to forget this movie.
Personally, I don’t mind the plot of a virus is beatin’ on your front door and you have to send the hero out to get the vaccine. The problem is the lone hero or heroine in this case of Eden Sinclair played by Rhona Mitra aka Kate Beckinsale Lite is too two dimensional. Thankfully, she’s given some back story but it’s not simply not enough.
The problem is the heroine is given nothing to work with since the story just sucks once it hits act two and three. The homages to several movies such as Aliens, Resident Evil, Mad Max, Gladiator by way of Monty Python and Holy Grail and even a Raiders of the Lost Ark just doesn’t cut it when it comes down to final ten minutes when there’s a Mad Max race to the finish line that decides to assault the audience’s ear drums.
I don’t know what happened with Doomsday. I was ready to try and compare it to I am Legend the one book that started all these apocalyptic shenanigans, that lovely four star movie happens to be out on DVD today but when a one star movie like Doomsday is not screened for the critics you know it’s gonna be bad.
Hopefully, when Underworld 3 arrives, Ms. Mitra will have a better plot to chew on.
