Doomsday

It's as if Neil Marshall is making fun of the whole world. He's got a lot more money than he's used to and he's totally off the rails. There's a lot of gloriously uncompromising violence, badass one-liners, and a perfectly cracking atmosphere. It has its charms and you can tell it doesn't take itself seriously at all, but unless you grew up on Escape from New York and watch Mad Max twice a year, it's probably not going to work for you. The editing could be less chaotic. (03/04/2008)

Neil Marshall is a master of trash who delights in original variations on subgenres and categories to such an extent that it’s astonishing that someone would give him money for it. From today’s perspective, however, that is no longer true. To a significant extent, Marshall made his living off the existence of the hungry global DVD market, which secured him fame in certain circles. Following the collapse of the DVD market, Marshall, like many other genre barbarians, found refuge in television, where he accepted the role of a mere wage-earning craftsman. Doomsday remains his most unhinged and most entertaining film. Despite the obviously limited budget, he amazingly unleashed his combination of genres and local sentiment, thus creating the ultimate trash flick in ultra-British attire. The odyssey to find a vaccine against a deadly virus takes viewers through a full range of genres, which are proudly combined with British elements, motifs and actors. In individual parts of the film, we identify the attributes of zombie movies, spy flicks and cyberpunk. The post-apocalyptic world gradually transitions from allusions to Carpenter’s Escape from New York to Cameron’s Aliens before resting for a moment in a Mad Max style enhanced by elements of punk concerts, so that it can travel by train a la Harry Potter to the magically Arthurian landscape of the highlanders. In addition to the casting of British faces with domestic genre icons Malcolm McDowell and Bob Hoskins at the fore, the film maintains throughout its runtime a certain British punk exaggeration reflected in, among other things, the regular incorporation of elements that relate to the contemporary world of film, whether the collection plates of the Mad Maxian cannibals or the direction signs of the medieval castle tour. However, Marshall did not have a bottomless budget, so he tried to use frantic camerawork and editing to conceal compromises in the set design and deficiencies in the choreography and other phases of scene preparation. Even though that is extremely annoying, in the end it works in the overall meta-trash concept, for which nothing is sacred except for unbridled entertainment and the ethos of Junktown. (22/11/2020)

Doomsday offers absolutely nothing new in the post-apocalyptic genre, but it’s still entertaining. I especially appreciated Rhona Mitra's hilarious hi-tech eye. It was interesting to see the effects of the virus on the Scottish population – turning them back into savage Picts with cannibalistic tendencies. No wonder they have always been perceived as a threat by the English. A fun action movie. (25/06/2016)

Slightly above average B-movie crap, which is lucky that it moves fast (something is practically always going on) and entertains, so you almost don't even stop to think about how unoriginal it is. Neil Marshall takes something from many famous (and better) films, throws it in the pot and cooks up this post-apocalyptic stew. It's not a bad meal, but as I said - you can eat it on your own. Leave your brain somewhere better for now. Best scenes: The ambush in the "deserted" town, the feast, Malcolm McDowell's speech (the guy is seriously the devil) and of course the whole final Bentley scene, which is so over the top it's brilliant. (17/08/2010)

This B-movie is a mix of everything we’ve seen a hundred times before, without a single idea, with hard-to-follow action scenes and flat characters. The more space Neil Marshall tries to cover – be it as a screenwriter or as a director – the more he messes up. And Doomsday is his most expansive film yet. (13/04/2008)