Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Refreshing and a Great Movie!, 25 Aug 2008
After watching Neil Marshall's previous movies, I surely wanted to see this one. Well, it's great. It's fun, violent and it doesn't impose itself as the great movie it is. It's an old-school movie, 80's style and i believe it refreshes the action-packed movies that are not working very well nowadays. Neil's directing is quite superb, sober and precise as the editing. There are no matrix-style camera moves or too much cgi...it was made like 20 years ago. The story and screenplay are simple, but the mixing of that simplicity with the thematic styles work amazingly. You have sci-fi mixed with post-punk and medieval, all cooked into a wonderful movie.
The lead actress fits perfectly into the "aeon-flux" role. And in a car chase/fight we can listen to Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Two Tribes!
I just loved it, and if you are a 80's sci-fi/ Mad Max and I Am Legend fan...you will love this. Great job, Neil Marshall!
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bloody good fun from a modern B-movie master, 28 Jul 2008
As a British male swiftly approaching 30, I know I'm not alone in getting a bit nostalgic now and then. Particularly when it comes to the movies. In an age where more and more action and horror films are being dished up to us neutered and sanitised - PG-13 'Terminator' and 'Die Hard' films, for God's sake! - I find myself more and more taking comfort in the full-on blood and guts fuelled classics of yesteryear. Ranking high among those are the films of John Carpenter, and George Miller's 'Mad Max' trilogy (or the first two at least.) And I'm certain I'm not the only one who had long been wishing that someone would come along and create a new movie in that 80's B-movie style.
Well, wish no longer. Neil Marshall has answered those prayers with 'Doomsday!'
And by gum, he's had a lot of mud flung at him for it. And the mudflingers really need to chill. Yes, the premise basically is 'Escape From New York' in Scotland, right down to the brooding synth score and the Atari-style graphics used to illustrate the walled-in zone. Even the same John Carpenter font is used for the opening credits! But it's not as if Marshall expects us not to notice this. At heart, `Doomsday' is doing the exact same thing that `Grindhouse' intended to do: evoke the spirit of a past age in cinema. And I dare say Marshall has done so far more successfully than Rodgriguez and Tarantino managed to. For as loaded as `Doomsday' is with knowing film geek references, it never gets all `nudge-nudge wink-wink' about it. There's humour, for sure, but never does it lapse into parody, not even when the music of the Fine Young Cannibals and Frankie Goes To Hollywood make an appearance.
Marshall made a decent first impression with the lightweight but likeable `Dog Soldiers,' and cemented himself as director of real power and vision with the awesome, truly scary `The Descent.' Here, while continuing his fascination with titles beginning in `D' (?!), he shows that he's far from a one-trick pony, staging numerous massive action sequences that squeeze in an impressive amount of bang-for-buck (the budget being I believe in the region of $30 million; his biggest to date, but small change by modern Hollywood standards). The script may be a bit patchy, sporting some dodgy dialogue and poor plotting, and some of the performances are a little lacking - in particular, sad to say, those from old pros Bob Hoskins and Malcolm McDowell. It's left to leading lady Rhona Mitra to catch the ball, and to my surprise she does so admirably. Step aside Alice and Lara - Eden Sinclair is the best action heroine we've had in years, and it's all down to Ms Mitra (though Adrian Lester provides solid support, and Marshall mainstay Craig Conway makes for a great psychotic nemesis). Far from being another embarrassing case of pretty girl trying to act tough - Denise Richards, anyone? - there's no doubt from her first moment on screen that Eden is not someone to be messed with, and when she kicks ass, you believe it.
But ass doesn't just get kicked in `Doomsday.' Oh no. It gets bludgeoned. It gets perforated. After all, why just cleanly stab someone when you can instead bloodily dismember and decapitate them? There's a big part of why this movie so much fun, and so reminiscent of the glory days of 80's action and horror - there's not a dry death in sight. And thankfully, little if any of it is that lame CG blood we're all growing sick of the sight of these days. Add to that a spot of great old school car chase action, and even a soupcon of swordplay, and you've got yourself just over an hour and half of blistering entertainment. Yes, of course it's a bit silly, and very, very, very derivative. But it's so much fun. It might not change anyone's life, but I really struggle to see how anyone couldn't at least have a good time. Naysayers be damned. Neil Marshall is here to stay. Bravo.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The sort of british movies we want not another rom com or sub standard crime caper., 6 Aug 2008
While there is nothing wrong with many british films the industry only seems interested in promoting rom coms and crime flicks, despite the fact that the british genre movies are the most succesful exports. So Neil Marshall has created a great action comedy horror with dog soldiers and a masterpeice of a horror with the descent. Doomsday is his third movie and it deviates from the horror genre, although it has some horror elements. Doomsday is a dumb action sci/fi movie that shamelessly homages (rips off) other classic movies, most notably Aliens, mad max and escape from new york. Even the soundtrack is very eighties sounding which reinforces its being a homage not a rip off.
So it isn't original in the slightest and the characters are cliched, to be honest the script isn't fantastic and the acting is variable, and lead actress Rhona Mitre lacks charisma. In fact she is like a female Keanu Reeves.
What the film does well is entertain, it is over the top action packed and ticks all the boxes for a saturday nights entertainment. For the modest budget it had it has plenty of bang per buck. The action is well directed, it is always clear what is going on and it gets the blood pumping. Well worth checking out.
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