One of the most enjoyable movies I've seen recently is a bizarre but cookin' action movie called Doomsday. It's Neil Marshall's (Dog Soldiers, The Descent) latest horror/sci-fi movie.
Doomsday is like Escape From New York meets The Stand. It's post-apocalyptic filmmaking at its most enjoyable. And I've got to talk about how regarding violence, this movie has its cake and eats it too.
This is a graphic film; for short burts it's as graphic as Passion of the Christ or the new Rambo, which both disturbed me quite a bit. What's strange is that while I found the intense violence in Passion or Rambo to be much more sickening than entertaining, the violence of Doomsday really appealed to me as entertainment. What is even stranger is that one of the themes of Doomsday is the futile and selfish nature of cruelty... so it somehow manages to be really fun-violent while trying to unmask actual fun-violence as an abomination!
And it's got killer car chases and fight scenes, too. WTF? This is surely a strange kind of great movie! Anyone know of a big-studio production that's as complex and fun as this? My contention is that the studios largely don't know how to pull this kind of thing off.
I recommend this to all sci-fi and horror fans, anyone interested in violence in films, and anybody who likes wild rides. You'll be shaken and stirred by this movie, and you'll be smiling woozily when the ride gets over.
PS--For those interested in the setup: when a deadly virus breaks out in Scotland, the UK quarantines the entire nation. A giant wall is constructed, and the virus is successfully contained. The world tries to forget about how they left Scotland to rot.
Twenty years on, it looks like the same virus has suddenly appeared in downtown London. An elite military team is briefed that there is evidence of survivors in Glasgow, Scotland. The team has twenty-four hours to find these survivors--if in fact they really exist--and find out how they survived the epidemic.
The viewer's joy ensues.