Doom

For many gamers out there, remembering the first time you played Doom is akin to remembering your first day at school, your first kiss, your first"¦ well, you get the point. And I remember mine: booting it up on my too-hot-to-trot x486 back in the heyday, thinking, "Jesus. Graphics can't any better than this," as I bastardized Nazis and loaded lead into the bodies of demonic spawn with my custom BMG gun. My first Doom match was an entrance into gaming nirvana, a transcendental experience. In its many incarnations, it remains the granddaddy of first-person shooters, a classic up there with Pong and Pac-Man.

As a film? Well, maybe not so classic.

"Why would anyone do this?" I asked myself when I heard Doom would be a full-length features. I mean, maybe I suffer from selective amnesia, but the last time I checked, movies based on videogames haven't exactly rocked the casbah qualitatively. Prime examples being Tomb Raider, a movie more notable for Angelina Jolie "” her faux Brit-speak, the naughty gleam in those eyes and all the magazine articles about her rigid high-protein diets "” than for sheer entertainment value, or Resident Evil, where Milla Jovavich's ill-suited miniskirts ran the show.

These adaptations rarely translate well to the big screen. Is it the lack of a fleshed-out, cohesive story? Final Fantasy fans and other RPG stalwarts might argue otherwise "” but then look how hollow Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Look ma! Pores!) turned out.

Director Andzrej Bartkowiak borrows an idea here and there from its source of inspiration, tosses out the rest, and throws in The Rock and Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers) for instant street cred. Set in the distant future, where people transport via metallic-glob transporters and walk through bulky nano-walls, Sarge's (The Rock) merry quarantine crew cuts their vacation short to investigate a mysterious disturbance at a scientific facility, where a genetic research team has disappeared. The creatures they encounter end up being far more than they bargained for.

Let's not kid ourselves. Doom isn't gunning to dethrone Crash or any other recent storytelling tour-de-force. Any vestige of storytelling is hurled out the porthole after 15 minutes of obligatory story exposition. There's something about an extra chromosomal pair, a human experiment gone awry and an ungainly plot thread between John (Karl Urban) and Samantha (Rosamund Pike) Grimm, a gorgeous scientist who tags along to salvage the science team's research data. Do I care that the Grimm have unresolved issues and need group therapy? Nope. Do I want to know about fictional genetic theory in lieu of pulse-pounding, gun-toting action? Not a wit.

What the film boils down to is a rollicking good time and on that front, Doom won't disappoint its hardcore fans. The gore onscreen is always readily visible, the action relayed

in tight, kamikaze-style cuts and the frightful snippets are tautly edited to a point where occasionally, you jump out of your seat.

It's all well-and-good until the director inevitably mucks it up with what's arguably the most excruciating and cheesy moment in recent cinema, a horrendously misplaced cinematic shout-out to all Doom fans out there: a five minute (feels like 20) first-person shoot-out that puts any embarrassing moments in Resident Evil out to pasture.

As for performances, I guess you could call them that. The Rock's tough militant schtick doesn't work for a second: when he puts his men in place, it's laughable. Even in the climactic battle with Urban, the guy's just too gosh-darned loveable for his own good. Nice try Rock, sir, but no cigar.

Unless you're a huge Doom fan, you'll want to pass on this latest videogame-cum-film gone awry. At times entertaining, it offers nothing new other than an opportunity for shareware nostalgics to remember the glory days.

And Rosamund Pike went from Pride & Prejudice to this?

Movie Grade: C

Synopsis:

Something has gone wrong at a remote scientific research station on Mars. All research has ceased. Communication has failed. And the messages that do get through are less than comforting. It’s a level 5 quarantine, and the only souls allowed in or out are the Rapid Response Tactical Squad – hardened Marines armed to the teeth with enough firepower to neutralize any enemy…or so they think. The research being done at Olduvai station has unwittingly opened a door, and all hell has broken loose. A legion of nightmarish creatures of unknown origin lurks behind every wall and stalks the countless rooms and tunnels of the facility, killing what few people remain. Sealing off the portal to Earth, Sarge, Reaper and their team must use every weapon at their disposal – and some they find along the way – to carry out their orders: nothing gets out alive.