Rather than resigning to reclusiveness, I decided to get out and see the Hollywood rendition of Doom. For those of you unfamiliar with Doom, it was originally a first person shooter (FPS) that was released in 1993. I still remember playing Doom “back in the day” and how cool I thought it was. While it’s true that those were the days before 3D graphics had really taken off, Doom still seemed truly impressive; in fact, it is still considered a landmark title for its genre. All that good stuff aside, one of my primary reasons for seeing the movie was that it stars the “The Rock” who is probably my favorite action hero. I’ve enjoyed all his other movie titles that I’ve seen such as Walking Tall and The Rundown, and I was truly looking forward to his appearance in this film.
Now that all that introductory stuff is taken care of, let’s get down to the movie. My initial take on the movie is mixed. I have to admit that I was a pretty disappointed that they changed the whole plot of the original video game. Hollywood took more than a little creative license in writing the plot, and I’d go so far as to say they basically took a few concepts from the video game and revised the rest. Any of you familiar with Resident Evil would probably be struck with a crazy feeling of deja vu as the movie had more in common with that series than it did with the Doom video game. Instead of legions of hell spawn and one lone bad-ass kicking their butts, Hollywood went the zombie route which was explained by genetic testing with a 24th chromosome. Yeah, I don’t see the similarities between those either, but oh well. If that weren’t bad enough, the writers for the movie must have been five years old as the dialogue was pretty terrible, but I can overlook that since it is an action movie.
In spite of the movie’s drawbacks, I did enjoy it overall. Naturally, “The Rock” was outstanding, but strangely enough, he wasn’t the true lead in the movie. I expected his character to be based on the individual who’s persona you take on in the game but that role was reserved for another actor. Thankfully, “The Rock’s” character still got to kick some major butt. I mean what could be cooler than “The Rock” wielding what Hollywood dubbed the “Bio Force Gun” (BFG)? In the original video game, BFG was quite a different acronym and stood for “Big Fucking Gun”. Thank goodness “The Rock” managed to use the original acronym in one of his lines (showing his true bad-ass nature).
If you’re looking for a thoughtless action movie, Doom certainly fits the bill. If you’re an avid gamer looking to see an accurate portrayal of one of your favorite games on the screen, then you’ll probably be a bit disappointed. In any case, Doom was a fun viewing experience, and “The Rock’s” performance made up for many of the other inconsistencies in the film. Without “The Rock”, however, this movie truly would have been Doomed. Yeah… I know. That was corny. 
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