Oh, now hold on …
Wait a minute …
Now here’s a film worth the money!!!
Me and Adrian managed to catch the Neil Marshall directed Doomsday, tonight, and my word: it’s definitely worth the money.
Especially if you happen to like Mad Max/Escape from New York style post-apocalyptic films, or took to either of Neil Marshall’s earlier efforts, Dog Soldiers and The Descent; the former of which I’ve seen, and happen to think is very British, and great fun!
Doomsday is no different, in that regard; except maybe with a bigger budget and better sets.
And a plot that’s a bit derivative — of Mad Max, if nothing else — but certainly with enough twists and turns to keep you on your toes.
The knights were certainly unexpected, I know that …
The film is set roughly twenty-five years into our immediate future; at some point around 2008, a deadly plague has hit the UK, and the government, in response, sends those who contract it to Scotland, and — literally — wall it off. Twenty-five years on, when a resurgent virus hits London, Rhona Mitra — as Major Eden Sinclair — is sent north of the Wall, with a crack squad, to try and find the one man who could develop a cure — Malcolm McDowell, as Marcus Kane.
Which is where the knights come in: Kane has managed to gather a group of virus survivors together and has set up a mildly fascistic feudal fiefdom in an abandoned castle. (A fantastic looking abandoned Scottish castle, I should add.) Complete with knights, torturers, what have you!
Which makes for a really watchable mix of near future and medieval imagery that I know I haven’t seen before.
Along with quite a bit of gore.
Now I know Adrian did have his doubts, after we’d seen Taken, about many movies being both excessively violent, and formulaic.
But I’m also thinking here, that Doomsday, at least, manages to be no more violent than the setting demands: it is an 18 certificate movie, so we can’t say we haven’t been warned.
And with Doomsday, director & writer, Neil Marshal does manage to put any influences into a blender, and come out with something fresh.
And that makes it watchable!
~≈Â≈~
| Cast | |
| Actor | Character |
| Rhona Mitra | Maj. Eden Sinclair |
| Malcolm McDowell | Marcus Kane |
| Bob Hoskins | Bill Nelson |
| Alexander Siddig | PM John Hatcher |
| David O'Hara | Michael Canaris |
| Adrian Lester | Sgt. Norton |
| Rick Warden | Chandler |
| Nora-Jane Noone | Cpl. Read |
| Leslie Simpson | Carpenter |
| Chris Robson | Stevie Miller |
| Sean Pertwee | Dr. Talbot |
| Darren Morfitt | Dr. Ben Stirling |
| Craig Conway | Sol |
| Lee-Anne Liebenberg | Viper* |
| MyAnna Buring | Cally |
~≈Â≈~
* Just so you know, Lee Anne Liebenburg — credited as Viper — is the character with the hair and facial tattoos.
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