Like Greg Mclean, director of "Wolf Creek" and another great white hope for the horror genre, Neil Marshall followed a very promising horror flick with a deliberately trashy project. Where Mclean directed his attention to a murderous crocodile, Marshall took a bow to two of his favorite movies, "Escape From New York" and "Mad Max". "Doomsday" is not just influenced by those two movies, it's practically a mash-up with the female heroine from "Underworld" thrown-in. So, the first thing you should forget about when you pop in this movie is originality. Marshall makes no excuses for paying homage to his heroes George Miller and John Carpenter (hell, he even named two characters in this movie after them).
Like "Escape From New York" and "Mad Max", "Doomsday" demands a lot of suspension of disbelief to be enjoyable. However, maybe sci-fi flicks could get away with more stupidity in the 80's or maybe Marshall's movie is just extra dumb. Sometimes it seems like the director wasn't even trying to fill plot holes or avoid laughable action scenes. If you're looking out for mistakes in "Doomsday", you'll find plenty to complain about.
So, no, this isn't the high profile follow up one would have wished for after the dense, claustrophobic "The Descent". On the other hand, "Doomsday" doesn't fail to entertain. It's fast paced and charmingly old fashioned. Who else dares to come up with a post-apocalyptic world in which punks and knights rule the country in this day and age? Marshall's love for the project is somehow transmitted to the viewer and actually gives you a very pleasant feeling.
If you're able and willing to turn off your brain, "Doomsday" can be a very entertaining, old-fashioned action movie. It may not be a masterpiece or even a good movie, but it can definitely be seen as a fun little interlude by a director that must not be written off just yet.
