This is the first article I will write where I will be laughing out loud to myself while writing it. This is not because of anything funny I have to say, or new insights I may offer. The near constant laughter will be caused entirely by recollecting the spectacle I have witnessed this past weekend called Doomsday, the most ridiculous and inexplicable act of filmmaking I have seen in a long, long time.
Let’s get some things straight. Doomsday is an amazingly terrible movie. I cannot, for all my life, describe just how over-the-top every single aspect of this movie is. This movie is essentially all of the silliest elements from silly 80s movies like Escape from New York and Mad Max and The Evil Dead all swirled into one mind-numbing concoction. This movie is something of an attempt at an “Escape from Scotland,” as its premise is relatively simple, but interestingly put together.
In the future, an unstoppable virus infects Scotland, killing people at an alarming rate. Thus, the British government builds a wall around Scotland in order to quarantine the population until the virus has run its course. Years later, when the virus shows up in London, a crack team of soldiers are sent into the quarantined zone to find a cure. What they find instead are cannibalistic punk rockers, medieval knights (somehow?), a Bentley, a car made of human skin, gladiator matches, a bunch of people who overact, Malcolm McDowell, and a lot of cows. Do any of these things have any relation to each other? No. The movie doesn’t even attempt to tie all these things together. Instead, our heroine, played by a bitter and stoic Rhona Mitra, is forced to episodically fight her way through all of these ridiculous things one by one.
None of this sound appealing? That’s a shame. Because every bit of this movie is so over-the-top it’s hilarious.
Take for instance the cannibal punks, led by some muscle-y dude named Saul. Saul has a girlfriend/macho hitwoman, a gimp he walks around with, an awesome mohawk, and the inability to speak without screaming.
He even entertains his legions via cheesy 80s music, strippers, and a bunch of fat dudes dancing in kilts. He then shouts about eating people and fighting and stuff, before cooking a guy. He also owns the skin car.
If you are thinking that nothing in this makes much sense, you’d be right. But in all its stupidity, the movie becomes far more entertaining than anything someone like Michael Bay could produce.
It’s also a pleasure to see veteran British actors Bob Hoskins and Malcolm McDowell ham it up in a piece of trash. McDowell, who’s made a career out of movies like this, is on personality overload as a scientist turned feudal king. Did I mention there are a plethora of decapitations? And an exploding bunny rabbit? So yeah. This movie sucks. But you should see it anyway.
