Reviews: Doom & Serenity

In an effort to post a bit more, here a couple of reviews for movies Cher and I recently took in…



Just last night, Jade’s B-day, after we’d taken the kids to Casa Bonita, we went out to see Doom. Of course, we left the kids at home and, after seeing it, I recommend you do the same. For those of you unfamiliar with the Doom franchise, it began life as a video game wherein you got to kill lots and lots of monsters with weapons varying from a chainsaw to the almighty BFG (euphemistically referred to as the “Big Frelling Gun”(substitute your own expletive for frelling if you like)). There was always something spooky about playing Doom in the dark. The atmosphere of the game was conducive to making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Of course, in retrospect, it may have been all of the caffeine I was drinking in those days…

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson plays Sarge, a muscle-bound killing machine. While I’ve enjoyed him in films like “The Rundown” and “Walking Tall,” I found this performance to be a half step backwards to his earlier work “The Scorpion King” which was simply awful IMHO. That’s not to say it was as bad as TSK, but it was not good either. The fact that there was almost no plot or character development probably contributed mightily to the hollowness of his performance. The most memorable performance was turned in by Karl Urban. So memorable in fact, I just now realized he played Eomer in the recent Lord of the Rings Trilogy. It’s rare that I fail to correlate an actor with prior performances when I see a show - rare enough that it’s a compliment to his performance that I didn’t notice.

On the whole, the movie was below mediocre. Sure there was lots of killing and gore but, the spooky feeling one gets when playing the video game simply wasn’t there. If you’re gonna make a movie based on a video game, it should at least produce a similar feeling. If you still want to see this one, wait for it to come out on DVD so that you can rent it or better still, borrow it from a friend.



Serenity

This one was a pretty damn good time. Joss Whedon, the man responsible for the hit TV shows “Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel,” busts onto the big screen with this light hearted, high energy romp through the Sci-Fi universe. It’s not great acting, the effects feel somewhat cartoonish in places, but it works. He intersperses bits of comedy characteristic of his earlier work throughout the film while managing a tangible, if a bit simple, storyline. Also, like his TV work, he spends most of his time on character development. This has the effect of helping you to be interested in what is happening to the various characters. In short, I liked it. If you enjoy science fiction and action, you’ll enjoy this one.

RCS