Doomsday - Film Review

While on the search for something to watch the other night, I spied the film ‘Doomsday, 2008’. I reckoned I had seen it before but I still recorded it for another day.

I had watched it a while ago and remembered it was one hell of an insane film, a mish mash of a number of other movies, with a great 1980s sound track. Getting the pervy side out of the way Maj. Eden Sinclair, played by Rhona Mitra sizzles as the feminine warrior and besides looking fit she kicks ass. She is a kind of British Snake Plissken (Escape from New York).

The premise, simple enough, a fatal virus known as the Reaper lays waste to Scotland so the government rebuild Hadrian's Wall to keep the virus out of the rest of the UK. Thirty years on and a police raid in London the Reaper Virus rears its ugly head. Activity has been spotted north of the border by the government, and this can only mean one thing in their eyes, survivors’ means a cure and a ray of hope.

The government pull together a crack team of military types and scientists to cross into Scotland in search of the cure. They were looking for mysterious Dr Kane a scientist who was working on a cure before the wall and found himself trapped on the wrong side when the wall went up.

The team assembles and head out and soon find themselves in a crazy world of cannibalistic Scotsmen, Mohawks, and Mad Max style car chases and later in the film mediaeval Scotland. The tension and suspense becomes wall-to-wall action leading to a BBQ of one of Sinclair’s team. Dr Kane’s son Sol is the crazy leader of the punks (is this a Mad Max film) in Glasgow. Viper is a cool bad girl punk who comes to a messy end at the hand of Maj. Sinclair.

Maj. Eden Sinclair

Maj. Sinclair and the two survivors of her team join up with Kane’s daughter and escape the city in search of Kane on a steam train. This leads to mediaeval land where you may not be on the menu but they don’t like outsiders with knowledge from beyond the wall. Another escape, which leads them to a cave full of things the previous government, thought it was prudent to store for safety, which includes a crate of mobile phones and a Bentley Continental GT both of which are handy to find. We then have a chase to the wall that is right out of Mad Max.

Doomsday has sword fights, car chases, and plenty of shooting up of bad people. Film critics are often accused of being snobs and this got a panning from them. However, if a film entertains that is all I need and this film falls into that category. You are left wondering just how many movies does Doomsday rip off?