movie review

MOVIE REVIEW
DOOMSDAY
Rated UR 2008
Malcolm McDowell and Bob Hoskins
This movie was a lot of fun. Think of a mix of 28 Days Later, Mad Max, Escape From New York and perhaps even Aliens thrown in for good measure. The acting, story, effects, pacing and everything that makes an entertaining film were great. You might argue the genre, being an isolated collapse, but that would be the only minor point of contention.
*
Present day Britain sees a killer plague, starting in Glasgow. The action starts right away with people being forced into quarantine rioting against the army troops. Troops firing into the crowd when one of them is all bloody and obviously a plague victim pisses everyone off when collateral damage from adjacent people being hit in the automatic fire sets everyone off. One mother and her daughter nearby crouching behind a car. One of the bullets hit’s the girl in the eye, she’s all messed up. By this time, once mom gets a bandage on the daughter, the troops have fallen back and big steel doors are closed and welded shut ( the walls had been set up as part of the quarantine). Mom runs to the last chopper lifting off with troops and begs them to take the daughter. One troop jumps off to allow her weight to be taken and off they go. Here comes the roaring crowd all pissed so you just know those two are toast.
*
Forward thirty years. Daughter is now a saucy fem soldier. She’s with DDS, Department of Domestic Security. Her and her unit are infiltrating a ship in London with a crime boss/drug dealer dude to bust him as he makes a deal. They go all ninja inside, come across some fool soaking in a tub, she sees them and grabs a shotgun and kills one. This is regrettably the only nude scene of the movie, naked women in tub firing. Fem cop kills her, but the shots alert drug dude, battle, blah blah. Ship is secured, and of course what do they find there but, wait for it, plague victims in one of the holds ( full of slaves drug dude was going to sell ). Now the guys in charge have to worry about another plague. Okay, back up a little bit. After the Glasgow outbreak, the entire Scottish country was sealed off. They built a wall the same spot the Romans did and quarantined the whole area. Wall, sea patrols, no flights over. In effect, the whole country sealed off.
*
Fem cop is chosen by her boss ( played by Bob ) to be the one to lead a team into Scotland to Glasgow to try to find a cure. A doctor left behind there at a hospital had been in touch with England for a time after the wall was sealed. He had soldiers and they had holed up as he attempted research. No word from him for some time, but it was a place to start. Combat team is assembled, they go in in two big armored cars ( kind of like Aliens, combat team sent in for search ). They are sweeping the hospital, looking for papers ( they have a medical dude with them in the team ) or whatever and they are attacked by Mad Max looking dudes, colored Mohawks and spiked clubs and what not. One of females poses as a victim, goes Trojan Horse into one of the armored carriers. Molotov cocktails go flying outside, inside wave attacks at the squad, everyone’s running around spraying the place with fully automatic fire, great fun is had by all. The few surviving troops make it back to the one surviving vehicles, they go tearing ass away. Crossbow sniper shoots through the front windshield ( it had a hole from a previous blunt object ) and kills the driver, the thing flips over and the last four bale. A sergeant, the doctor, fem cop and one trooper are left. The first two escape, the trooper is overwhelmed and fem cop is knocked out and captured. Wakes up, evil Mohawk ruler questions her, where are you from, hit, punch, wail, I’m from beyond the wall. He’s pretty happy in a psychotic evil leader dude way, now they can escape the quarantine zone. Fem cop is to kept alive to show them how to get back over the wall ( mines and automatic machine guns and what not protect it ).
*
The one trooper left is set on fire and everyone tries to eat some of him, it’s a big cannibal party. Fem cop escapes ( naturally, she’s super ninja fem warrior ), takes the prisoner next door with her after she claims she’ll lead her to the long lost doctor. Fem cop hooks back up with sergeant and young combat team doctor, narrow escape from Mohawk leader dude who is totally pissed off because fem cop killed his main squeeze who looks pretty rad in face tattoos and none too shabby in a leather S&M looking outfit so she was obviously his favorite who never got kicked out of bed for eating crackers. They escape on a handy steam locomotive after other fem prisoner meets up with archery dude who had been waiting for her. Off they go to the country, looking for old doctor. And they are captured by knight dudes on horses. Ninja fem cop could have taken them, but she knew they would lead her to old doctor dude so she let them win that round. Old doctor dude is now a king, set up in an old castle, commanding his new medieval kingdom of naturally plague immune knight dudes. Satellites had been monitoring the cities, he had gone undetected in the countryside.
*
Off with their heads, commands the king, fem cop goes single combat on an armored knight dude with spear and mace. It’s close but in the end she kicks his butt. They escape, go into an old military base under a mountain, find some cool looking British sports car in storage, take tearing off in that. And who do they run into but the Mohawk guys from the city, all Road Warrior like with crappy welded together vehicles. The car chase, jumping off one vehicle to another, crashes, crushed bodies, bare knuckle fighting in a speeding car, great fun is had by all. Evil Mohawk leader is killed after much effort. Off they go down the road to meet up with a government chopper that will extract them. Hand over the one girl, she’s immune, her blood sample will show you the cure. Evil new British leader is along for the ride, fem cop tapes him admitting they waited for the cure until after more of the population died off, gives tape to cop boss to expose him, stays behind in Scotland and at the ending scene goes back to the crazy Mohawk dudes and throws down the evils leaders head and assumes the new crown of crazy Mohawk dudes queen. Cool.
*
Genre Rating- good to excellent. Even though the plague is localized to Scotland, the rest of the world quarantines Britain itself so you get a sense of isolation, stagnation, decay and other collapse type events. It feels like a doomer film.
Nudity Rating-poor to fair. Much more skin than the one fight scene was needed.
Overall Rating-excellent. Well done, with great fun. None stop action, all the over the top stuff worked well, perhaps because the tone was not serious. You get a feeling that the ideas gleamed from others was homage, not a rip off. The whole thing worked very well together and was very enjoyable.
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A better argument for peak oil and the economy than I gave:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/48442