Doom is not a masterpiece. However for what it is, a video game to movie franchise, it does a decent job. I was watching this film when suddenly my parents came in. They immediately sat down and watched the last 50 minutes with me. Surely that's an indication that the film itself wasn't too bad. My favourite part of the movie was the FPS scene. It showed a level of originality which has been absent in other Video game movies, such as the Resident Evil franchise. Another Pro was the casting of the Rock as Sarge and Karl Urban as Reaper. Both made decent performances in the movie.
The level of action was decent and I was happy that the film branched out a bit further than the 90 minute restriction. Furthermore I particularly enjoyed the fact that the makers decided to use models and suits, similar to Alien rather than rely on CGI. It again shows a level of originality that implies the makers wanted the film to stand out and was not there just to make money.
The cons were that overall the acting was not great. The other marines for example, other than The Rock and Urban, did not put in great performances and Rosamund Pike, I think was particularly bad. They seemed an ordinary group of guys thrust into battle. They just didn't seem to act like a group of elite, disciplined soldiers. It just didn't feel realistic.
Another con is that the film was not particularly scary. The actual game is deemed to be one of the scariest games out there to play. So it feels an opportunity missed that the film was not a terrifying roller-coaster ride filled with suspense and was more like a variety of action sequences containing grim monsters.
All in all Doom is a movie which is by no means perfect, is a decent film for what it is. A video game.
