Doomsday

Title: Doomsday
Cast: Rhona Mitra, Bob Hoskins, Alexander Siddig, David O’Hard, Malcohm McDowell
Director: Neil Marshall
Producers: Benedict Carver, Steven Paul
Screenwriter: Neil Marshall
Editors: Andrew M

Genre: Action/ Science Fiction
Running Time: 105 min
Distributor: Rogue Pictures
Location: Great Britain, Scotland
Cinematography: Sam

Technical Assessment: * * *
Moral Assessment: ● ●
CINEMA Rating: For mature viewers 18 and above


It is the year 2035. A deadly virus is sweeping over London and claiming lives but there is no cure. It is the same virus that virtually decimated the population of Glasgow, Scotland 23 years earlier and which then led to the quarantine of the whole city mainly by means of a great metal wall. Everyone is presumed to have died in Scotland in that epidemic; however, there is evidence of some survivors according to recent satellite photos which suggest that there may be a cure. The British Prime Minister John Hatcher (Alexander Siddig) and his adviser Michael Canoris (David O’Hara) decide to send a team to Scotland to locate a scientist named Kane (Malcohm McDowell) who was working on a cure but was trapped inside the “Hotzone” when the quarantine started. On the advice of Police Chief Bill Nelson (Bob Hoskins), Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) is chosen to head the team. But her task turns out to be more difficult than expected. After breaching the wall, Sinclair finds the survivors grouped into two warring factions each one trying to protect its own turf. One group of cannibalistic savages is led by Sol (Craig Conway), son of Kane who tortures and imprisons Sinclair and her team. The Britons manage to escape only to fall prisoners into the hands of another group headed by Kane himself who has abandoned scientific pursuits and has become a ruthless chieftain. Sinclair’s team manages to save their skins again but for how long before they are caught by either group? Will Sinclair ever get a cure? If not, what happens to Britain now in the throes of a raging plague?

Armageddon has often fascinated filmmakers who have come up with various scenarios regarding the annihilation of mankind in the end of time. The fast-paced, heavily action-laden film Doomsday is the latest cinematic attempt to do this and has borrowed heavily from its apocalyptic predecessors like I Am Legend among others. Director Neil Marshall has heightened the savagery, the bloodletting and the violence with more gruesome scenes including decapitation and the barbecuing of a live human being. With many familiar echoes from the past movies, the storyline can hardly be called original. Other motifs (like Sinclair’s quest to reconnect with the memory of her lost Scottish mother and the corrupt political situation in Britain) are introduced to add complexity to the storyline but are never developed and are loosely appended to the narrative. Some scenes stand out like the sequence portraying the outbreak of the plague, right after the introductory voice over. Some fight scenes are well choreographed like the gladiator style duel involving Sinclair and the multi-car chase. They rely on old fashioned physical stunts rather than the modern CGI. Most of the cast are virtually unknown. But the lead character, Rhona Mitra, ably essays the Sinclair role; however, the screenplay does not give her depth. Often, she is emotionally detached.

Doomsday is fantasy and science fiction but can values be gleamed from it? The film portrays desperate people in crisis and how they behave to cope or to survive. It also shows the reaction of people in authority when confronted with a crisis of this magnitude. Though meant only to entertain, this film might set us thinking. Is there some way this catastrophe could have been averted or at least minimized? The response of killing both the infected and uninfected is condemnable. Could there have been a more humane way of coping with the situation? The depicted British politicians are unprincipled and ruthless, willing to let most people die so that fewer survivors could be attended to in case a cure is found. As for the R-13 classification, CINEMA does not think that 13 year old children are mature enough to be allowed to see all this violence and inhumanity. They sooner or later become desensitized to violence and may become violent themselves eventually.