It’s easy to say that “Doomsday” is simply a mish-mash of “The Road Warrior”, “Escape from New York”, “Aliens”, and “28 Days Later” and leave it at that. But doing so leaves out the birth of a new hero that should grace the screen for hopefully a couple more installments.
In “Doomsday”, Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) and a small group of British commandos must find the source of a possible cure to save an infected Britain from the Reaper virus. The virus is thought to have been contained 20 years ago, but is now resurfacing to wreak havoc once again. The contamination zone happens to be the entire country of Scotland, where the original outbreak occurred. Scotland is now a waste land and has been since it was locked down behind high tech walls for the past 20 years. Scotland is also thought to be devoid of life by the world population. However, the British government, for reasons of its own, kept secret the existence of some civilization within the ruins.
Our hero, Eden Sinclair is a survivor of the original holocaust when she was but a little girl. Her mother begged a group of fleeing soldiers to take her before Scotland was completely shutdown from the rest of the world. Over twenty years later, she’s an elite, tough-as-nails soldier of the British military. Sinclair must track down a research doctor left inside Scotland who would have been capable of finding a cure all those times from within.
That set the stage for an unapologetic gritty sci-fi action movie not afraid to be grizzly when necessary. Although the scenes and segment plots are familiar, some even argue “lifted” from the aforementioned movies, “Doomsday” is a worthy throwback to 80’s style action films we enjoy. The car chases are furious. The fights are bloody. And the bad guys, for lack of better words, are highly entertaining.
Sol (Craig Conway), the Mohawk-ed leader of the city savages, voraciously drives his hordes with hate and fear. At times, his antics are clownish and over-the-top, making me chuckle. However, for all the cruelty and raw brutality that Sol and his band exhibit, Sinclair is even crazier, not afraid to drive headlong into a bus risking harm to herself and her companions.
Malcolm McDowell portrays the bitter Kane, the leader of a small village adopting a medieval, low technology lifestyle to deliberately avoid satellite detection. Kane was a research doctor working with the military before the lockdown and the object of Sinclair’s search. But since he lost his family and everything he cared for during the lockdown, Kane detests everything and anything outside the walls of Scotland and refuses to cooperate with Sinclair. Once again, the actions within Kane’s village, specifically, the arena fight pits a modern-day tactical warrior (Sinclair) against a heavily-armored knight (Kane’s champion and executioner) in close combat. The fight is enjoyable showcasing Sinclair’s better training, skills and resourcefulness in beating the knight.
All in all, “Doomsday” is a great first movie that ought to have sequels and a cult following. The action-packed sequences usually with gruesome outcomes are not for children. And the movie ending certainly calls for more as it alluded that Sinclair is going to be the new leader of the savage hoard.