Language - English
Genre- sci-Fi
Characters:
Eden
Sinclair - A DDS agent, Survivor from Scotland and our hero
Kane
- a Doctor trapped in Scotland who may have the cure
Sol
- leader of the punks
Cally
- a helpful girl
25
years ago a new virus appeared in Scotland. Called the Reaper virus
It could not be cured so Scotland was walled off and the population
were left to die. 3 years ago evidence of survivors were found
but the government told no one and did nothing. Now the reaper
virus has been found in London, in an attempt to stop the virus a
team is sent to Scotland to try to find a cure.
I
remember that after watching this for the first time i had a ‘what
have i just seen’ moment as Doomsday seems to be many films in one.
It starts as a quite violent plague movie as we see the
population of Scotland trying to escape their fate, when a Reaper
virus victim is spotted all hell breaks loose as the army open fire
and evacuate the country. The violence then continues as
we jump 25 years and the film becomes a spy movie which introduces us
to DDS agent Sinclair.
The
film changes pace when Sinclair and her team re enter Scotland. We
are shown plenty of shots of dead bodies and, when this is combined
with the virus the film takes on the feel of zombie movie, similar to
‘28 days later’. Sinclair and her team look like something
out of ‘Aliens’ and, given the atmosphere the viewer is always
expecting something horrible to jump out at them and this Zombie
style is continued whilst the team look for Doctor Kane in his old
hospital, the vibe is continued as they find a lone girl.
When
the enemy is revealed the feel of the film changes again. Now we are
in a post apocalyptic film filled with cannibalistic punks who ride
motorbikes and drive cars & buses covered in spikes which will
always bring ‘Mad Max’ to mind. We stay in this world for a
bit and the film seems to have found it’s style but no Sinclair and
her team escape Sol with the help of Cally who says she can help them
find Kane.
So
our heroes jump on a train and cut through a mountain via an old
military storage unit and are attacked by a man on horseback in a
suit of medieval armour, he is basicly the black knight. They
are taken to Kane who is ruling over his own bit of Scotland like a
medieval king. Then we have an escape using a Bentley car which
leads us to (great) car chase back through mad Max land.
As
well as all this there is also a political angle with two parties
playing for power and trying to take control of the rest of the U.K..
If
this much was thrown into most movies they normally turn into a mess
there are even some movies that can’t cope with one genre if they
try to put too many tropes into it but Doomsday works. I think
it is because it just over the top enough so it can’t always be
taken too seriously but doesn’t descend into farce. The
action is so over the top that at one point one of the punk’s
cars hits a dead body and then bursts into flames.
There
are a few inconsistencies relating to the passage of time, the punks
still have fresh cans of lager but no one seems to be making
them. The punks are cannibals due to the lack of food but there
is an overpopulation of cows and all knowledge of modern technology
seems to have disappeared in Kain’s kingdom but even these don’t
detract from the film.
Over
all Doomsday is a great, over the top romp that pays homage to number
of great films, there's even a cameo by William Wallis.
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