I am going to just be upfront here. There is really no good reason you should enjoy this post-apocalyptic film directed by Neil Marshall (Centurion). The movie is trashy and nonsensical, with a poorly written plot that can't make up its mind what it wants to be. But damn it, it has some sort of weird charm to it! Besides, I'm a sucker for post apocalyptic movies.
So there are going to be some spoilers here, so don't read this if you want to be surprised. Having said that, this movie really doesn't have any real surprises so take that spoiler alert with a grain of salt.
Here is my attempt at a synopsis:
Doomsday Movie #1 - the zombie film meets Escape from New York. In the future, a killer virus sweeps through Scotland, turning its victims into brutal, animalistic monsters. When rescue efforts fail, the United Kingdom walls off all of Scotland and lets the countryside destroy itself until the disease dies out. Unfortunately, decades later, the disease resurfaces in London. Enter our one-eyed hero Snake Plisskin----I mean, our one-eyed hero Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), who has to cross the wall into isolated and devastated Scotland and investigate rumors of a cure.
Then the movie changes into Doomsday Movie #2, where Eden collides with punk rock cannibals living in the dilapidated remains of the city, and then Doomsday Movie #3, where she runs into a band of medieval warriors led by a disillusioned scientist, Dr. Kane, played by Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange). And then don't forget Doomsday Movie #3, which is basically Mad Max in the Scottish highlands starring Snake Plis--damnit! I did it again. I meant Eden Sinclair.
If all this sounds a bit incoherent, you would be correct. The narrative of the film is a complete mess. But that said, the plot almost makes the film like one of those old serials from the 1930s, where every episode ended with our heroes in a new and completely different cliffhanger. In fact, maybe that was Neil Marshall's plan all along. The different sequences are so different that even the filmmaking style and editing seem to be distinct. And that is kind of neat to watch.
Of the four movies, the zombie apocalypse one is pretty terrible, with the talented Bob Hoskins and Alexander Siddig completely wasted in their parts. And the sequence with the most potential, Medieval Fun-Time with Malcolm McDowell, is a completely wasted opportunity. Basically, these survivors decided to live in a castle and dress up in medieval clothes (where did they find all those outfits?!) and act as if modern times had never existed. Well, that makes no sense. I know Neil Marshall's original idea was to have a modern day SWAT team take on a bunch of knights. If that is the case, then he should have made a time travel movie, because that idea doesn't work in this movie. What he needed was some sort of weird hybrid of medieval times and today, a subversive Renaissance Fair gone horribly wrong. There are a few hints of that here and there - I like that the castle has signs for bathrooms and exits for when it was a tourist attraction in happier times. But these bits are in the background and if you blink, you'll miss them. That sort of absurdity should have been a much bigger part of the movie. That would have been very cool!
So that leaves us with the cannibal punks and the Mad Max-style climax, both of which are a lot of more energetic and entertaining than the rest of the movie. Some of the credit should go to the punk leader, Sol, played by Craig Conway, who just brings a whole lot of over-the-top energy to the movie. There is chewing on scenery and then there is engorging on it, and that is what he's doing. But even without Conway, these sequences just move at a crisp pace and are pretty entertaining. They are fun, gory, exciting, stupid shlock.
Does that make me a bad person? I review movies, damn it! I'm not supposed to like stuff like this! But I can't help myself. I was entertained!
BEST LINE:
Sol: If you're hungry, have a piece of your friend.
MVP:
This is an easy one. I have to go with Rhona Mitra. As much as I enjoyed Craig Conway, this is Mitra's movie. Sure, I poked fun at her character being a Snake Plisskin ripoff, but that's certainly not her fault. When so many movies today feature action heroes, both men and women, who are too pretty to be believable, it is a relief to find someone I completely believe as a badass. She is an easy MVP for me. It doesn't hurt that she is scorching hot. I would not give anyone a MVP award for that reason alone, but it certainly doesn't count against her, either!
TRIVIA:
In an ode to the films that inspired Doomsday, two of the DDC soldiers are named Miller and Carpenter, after George Miller who directed Mad Max and John Carpenter who directed Escape from New York.
