Doomed to fail

May 9 2008 by Phil Key, Liverpool Daily Post

WHEN a plotline suggests that a large part of the population has been killed off by a mystery plague, you think you know what to expect – a small cast wandering around a wood.

Doomsday is not the low budget experience you feared, however – it is a lot worse.

Director/writer Neil Marshall was given enough cash to fill his screen with hordes of extras and lots of special effects and even got two big- name actors, Bob Hoskins and Malcolm McDowell, to provide cameo roles.

It proves too much. Doomsday is a badly thought-out science fiction saga which leaves more questions than answers.

Why do some survivors live a Medieval lifestyle riding horses in armour while others drive cars? Why are all the survivors generally in the 20-30 age bracket, with no sign of the young or elderly? Where does everyone live?

In the end, it is pointless to ask such questions when Marshall seems content to provide a Mad Max-style scenario with painted hordes for ever on the rampage.

The story opens quite well in a cinema verité fashion, setting the scene for a plague in Scotland which leads the English authorities to close the border with a hi-tech wall. One young girl with an injured eye is the last to be airlifted into England.

Some years later, the girl is a woman, Eden Sinclair, who leads a kick-ass team of soldiers. She also wears an eye patch and can remove her false eye which sends back pictures to her head (it could happen!).

News of survivors in Scotland finds her team sent in to discover how they survived as the plague has now broken out in London.

The promising set-up soon descends into a series of violent confrontations with the Scots who appear to have been turned into cannibals by the plague and are determined to kill any intruders.

Eden Sinclair is played by Rhona Mitra, a name new to me but suitably mean and lean for the role.

After a few explosions and tanks being set on fire, etc, she and her team are captured by the punk-style survivors who then get together for a meal, one of Eden’s team providing the main course after being roasted over a fire.

Eden escapes and sets off to find Malcolm McDowell, a chap who apparently knows the cure for the plague but who is now living in a Scottish castle complete with a renegade band of warriors.

The story gets a little muddied here, as back in England the Prime Minister is working on a plot of his own and pol- ice chief Bob Hos- kins has been given the push. There’s a road chase, a helicopter rescue that isn’t and a lot more besides. One comes away with a jumble of images of screaming Scots, cool-but-wicked English and a one-eyed heroine. What one never gets is a clear idea of what the hell is going on – and why.

philkey