Doomsday

There’s something distinctly un-British about Neil Marshall’s Doomsday. Our film industry is a venerable institution – we make small films and we’re proud of it. Not for us the cocksure can-do swagger of our transatlantic cousins. No, we specialise in the low key, the intimate, the esoteric… the quintessentially English.

But Doomsday, well… Imagine rocking up to a cricket match only to find the umpire fisting the wicket keeper. That’s Doomsday: there’s nothing wrong with it per se, it’s just a little… unexpected.

Or is it? This, after all, is Neil Marshall – the man who’s brought us werewolves, Marines and underground freak people versus hot, ass-kicking lady potholers. If anybody was going to make an indecently ambitious, post-apocalyptic, cabaret thrill ride, well, it was going to be Neil, right?

Scotland, 2007. A deadly virus has broken out in Glasgow, and the British government has no choice but to seal the border and leave everybody to die. Three decades pass, only for the virus to reappear in a crumbling, dystopian London. The government – now headed by a simpering lackey and his shadowy, right-hand Scotsman (see! It’s not just an action movie; it’s a Political Allegory!) – assembles a crack team of soldiers headed by Rhona Mitra (Kate Beckinsale wasn’t available, but fortunately her Underworld wardrobe was) whose job is to return to Scotland, where secret spy satellites have discovered a survivor. They need to find out if there’s a cure and get back to London stat, so the important part of the country can still be saved.

Wow! The lineage of Doomsday is gloriously transparent. Neil Marshall has looked long and hard at Mad Max 2, Aliens, I Am Legend and even Gladiator. Then he’s thought, ‘Yeah, why not?’ The result is Escape from Glasgow; an insane action express that has no interest in girly ideas like plot coherence and logic, but plenty of time for S&M cannibals, medieval knights and super ultra mega violence.

It’s a brain-frying bombardment of car chases, beheadings, knightly duels, beheadings, rabbit-splattering cannon fire and more beheadings. It’s as if Marshall knows that the minute he allows the audience to sit back and think about what they’re watching – a balls to the wall British action movie ferchrissakes – the whole crazy enterprise will come crashing down around him.

And by and large it works. The challenge for this kind of film is one of scale – it needs to look and feel cinematic on a relatively tight budget given the demands of the genre. This Marshall mostly achieves, with his helicopter shots, convincing CGI and the lush, open landscapes of Scotland.

It’s all very silly – people fly from London to Glasgow in 20 minutes, and fuelled up Bentleys are found in secret underground laboratories – but damn if you won’t have a smile plastered over your face. A stupid smile, sure. A laugh-or-you’ll-cry smile maybe. A smile of dazed incredulity even. But you know what? We’ll take it.

Matt Bochenski

Anticipation:

Neil Marshall is a distinctive and ballsy British filmmaker.

Enjoyment:

One for the action junkies, but a good one at that.

In Retrospect:

Another solid step on Marshall’s bizarre career path.