Okay fanboys, let's get something straight; if it weren't for Doom, you wouldn't have your games like Halo and Killzone . . . . though technically Wolfenstein 3D really was the first person shooter, but Doom is what really popularized the genre. There has been talk for a number of year that Doom was going to move from the computer screen to the movie screen, an idea that many found a bit humors. There haven't been very many good video game movies after all, and films like Street Fighter, Double Dragon, and Super Mario Brothers have been nothing more than an abomination that makes a mockery of the game industry. Doom however is a bit different than most games.

Doom, as far as the game goes, is simply a first person shooter with not much in the way of story. You have a basic premise behind the game, but there isn't as far as plot. It's simply about killing as many monsters as you can on Mars and safely making it to the next stage. In terms of transforming the game into a movie, there is the option to create something more than what the game offers, and now the much-rumored film attempts to do that.

The film is still set on Mars, and that's what any fan of the game expects. The Martian Olduvai Research Station has recently come under assault by an unknown force, and a group of Marines from Earth has been sent on a mission to eliminate the threat. Under the leadership of Sarge (The Rock) the team begins to encounter the creatures lurking in the darkness at the station, but there are a few more problems. The team also needs to assist one of the researchers, Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike) to retrieve vital data regarding some of their experiments, and there is a great deal of tension since her brother John (Karl Urban) is part of the team, and the two have had quite a falling out over the past few years. As the Marine force learns more about the situation, they discover that the threat isn't alien, but very much human.

Doom in many ways feels a great deal like Aliens in terms of who some of the events play themselves out. Even the lighting and atmosphere often times tend to feel like Aliens, though you won't find a female lead character going toe-to-toe with fearsome aliens. Unlike the game though, the movie doesn't feature the legions of Hell spewing forth to conquer the world. The "monsters" are actually humans who have transformed due to experimentation. Killing demons in the game never bothered me, but to be quite honest, it never made much sense, and I do feel that this change works quite well for the movie. You will see monsters though that you've blasted time and time again, so it isn't completely unfamiliar territory.

The film also takes the opportunity to include some first person action. I'd often joked that if there was going to be a Doom movie, it should feature the first person view, and obviously someone didn't think it was a joke. This is actually one of the best parts of the movie and anyone who has played the game is sure to get a chuckle out of it. The whole movie though isn't in first person mode, though that would have been really cool.

You can't simply have two Marines involved, and there is a small battalion, all with their own call sings like Mac, The Kid, and Goat. As you may have guessed already, these additional characters are nothing but cannon fodder, but this allows for a few moments gore such as decapitations. This is Doom after all, and bloodshed is an essential part of it. You'll even get the chance find a familiar weapon in the film, the legendary BFG, the gun that every player want to have in their possession as quickly as possible. In the film, the BFG has been given a more suitable name, the Bio Force Gun, though you will hear the gun referred to as the old standby name that everyone is used to hearing.

The movie does use computer animation for some portions, but there is also something that you don't see too often any more, and that would be make-up. Yes, people do still use make up artists in some cases, something that is becoming a forgotten art. I have to give credit for the decision not only to go this route, but also to bring in Stan Winston's effects company. I'm more partial to old school makeup being used in a film, but if you have to use computer animation, at least the producers of Doom went the extra mile and used both.

Doom features a lot of bonus features, though there are some that I couldn't look at. It wasn't a problem with the disc, but rather, the DVD features a demo for Doom 3, which is for the Xbox, something I don't own and don't intend to purchase. The Basic Training segment is a behind the scenes look at what the actors went through before getting into the film. No, they didn't sit and play Doom for hours on end, but they did have the opportunity to get some actual field training with military personnel. You'll also get a look at the makeup process that The Rock underwent for the closing scenes of the film as well as some of the other monsters that appear in Doom.

I'm sure that you're going to love the first person sequence, and this is also look at in a bit more detail, including an extended version of it. This wasn't the easiest thing to pull of, and seeing just what went into creating this is quite amazing. Doom-nation gives the history of the popular game featuring interviews from the creators as well as other personalities in the game industry. If you're new to the game, this will give you more than enough information about the game that literally revolutionized the industry. Lastly, there is a tops and tricks feature that will help you survive the game.

Doom isn't necessarily a great movie, and I know that some devoted fans of the games weren't too pleased with the approach. I enjoy playing the game, but I wouldn't necessarily say that I'm a fan, so changes in this case don't really ruin the film in my opinion. Some of the dialog is bad, some of the acting isn't the best in the world, but Doom is also a movie that can be sat through at least once. Though I don't think that huge fans of the games are going to have any appreciation for Doom as a movie, but the moderate fans or those that have never played it in their life, this movie is aimed more at them. Doom isn't perfect, but it isn't terrible either and is a bit better than just about every video game movie that's been released . . . . plus Uwe Boll wasn't involved in any way.
 

-mike-