"Doomsday" - The end is nigh!

Doomsday (2008)

My expectations were low when I went into this movie. In spite of her decent performance in David Gale, I had not filed Ms Mitra under "competent actress", but rather under "hot babe". I had not been very convinced by her performance in Shooter, but as it turns out, she managed to carry Doomsday rather nicely. Granted, it was not a great dramatic role, but it was also not a simple emotionless-heroine-with-snappy-one-liner bit, either. She does get some pretty cool one-liners, though, and delivers them nicely. But she also gets to do some nice comedy, and a little bit of drama.

Which gets us to the main thing about this movie---the unique combination of action/gore and comedy. The movie does not take itself too seriously, and occasionally even seems to be its own parody. While it takes the action itself seriously in the technical sense, and executes it very competently, at times spectacularly so, it is also seasoned with often hilarious references, reflective jokes, and even plain-ole slapstick. The plot itself may not sound terribly novel---think Escape from New York (but with a beautiful woman instead of Kurt Russel!), 28 Days Later, Mad Max, Omega Man etc. What is unique about this flick is the melange of utter gore and hilarious comedy. Imagine the bad guys re-enacting a Blues Brothers concert (including dancing to a signature song; on stage!), while roasting a good guy alive. That sort of thing. It may sound crazy, or disgusting, or just incongruous, but it is effectively combined with interesting, and unique, effect.

The supporting cast delivers great performances all around. Lester's talents remain a little underused---hope to see him again soon in Hustle, although this seems unlikely. Conway is simply in his own league at being over-the-top crazy, Liebenberg creates a very memorable mixture of beauty and evil, McDowell naturally focuses more on the evil bits but does a darn fine job on those, as well. O'Hara performance also stays with you, although his character being more of the quiet-sinister type, it can hardly stand out in a movie like this. Similar comments apply to the fine but less remarkable deliveries of Hoskins and Siddig.

The visuals in this movie are varied and stunning. Beautiful countryside, destitute post-apocalyptic inner city, gory action, Mad Max-like road fights (but in Scotland, so the road actually has bends and stuff), battlefields, dungeons, medieval castles, etc. Designing and shooting this movie must have been a blast, and so is watching it. In addition to filming a wide variety of interesting settings, the director has the good sense of training the camera frequently on Mitra, who ranks high among the many great visuals in this film.

Entertaining action flick with a good sense of humor. Worth watching if not taken too seriously.

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