Director Tony Giglio
Starring Amy Manson, Dominic Mafham, Luke Allen-Gale
Rated MA
Score 0/6
Follows a group of UAC Marines as they respond to a distress call from a top-secret scientific base on Phobos, a Martian moon, only to discover it’s been overrun by demons who threaten to create Hell on Earth.
Why did I watch this? It must be because I’m an idiot and maybe if I was feeling a little more rational at the time I might have waited awhile before reviewing this considering it’s a straight to DVD release. It should be noted that according to the official Doom video game Twitter account, the video game series’ creators “Were not involved with the making of this movie.” Director Tony Giglio is on record as saying that Bethesda & ID Software were asked to be involved in the production, even prior to a script being completed. They were asked to contribute to the story, script, casting & demon designs. They declined and wished the production good luck.
My first thoughts when the credits rolled on Doom: Annihilation was dam it looks like there is a chance for a sequel my second that was I don’t know how he did it but it seems that director Tony Giglio managed to out ‘Uwe Boll’ Uwe Boll. However, with a small amount of reflection between watching this dumpster fire I have to admit that unlike what you would see with a video game movie adaption directed by Boll, Giglio actually attempted to have his movie have passing resemblance to the video game.
The money used to finance this movie would have been better spent elsewhere. I was completely unimpressed with the acting (to my knowledge I haven’t come across anybody cast in this before), the special effects and the writing. The effects used in this ‘movie’ probably would have been more at home in 2000 in Geoff Murphy’s Fortress 2.
Giglio who also wrote the screenplay for Annihilation, made no effort to make invest emotionally in the plot of the movie. Sure this is a Big Loud Action Movie and there doesn’t have to be a lot of meat on the bones to the plot story wise, but I would have liked it if the filmmakers involved with the production of this dumpster fire had taken the time to make me care if the marines in this movie lived or died, he even failed to make the ticking clock the Marines are trying stop from happening seem urgent. If Giglio did that, at the very least. I would have been more forgiving about some of the other things that annoyed me about this movie because I understand that this is a low budget and the production probably couldn’t have afforded a lot of things. Because as we all know an actor is only as good as the script they are given. Hell, the only significant character development in the entire movie was crammed into the final twenty minutes of the movie. Its called ‘A Character Arc’ for a reason!!!