Can you smell … what the Rock … is cooking? IT DOESN’T MATTER! The Rock lays the smack down on some alien candy asses.

Credit: Ben Breier

 

Doom Starring The Rock, Karl Urban, Rosamund Pike Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak Released by Universal Studios Stater rating (out of four): * 1/2

 

With winter approaching, we can finally expect to see quality films with hopes of attracting the Academy’s attention.

Doom is not one of those films.

Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak (Romeo Must Die), Doom is the adaptation of the first-person shooter computer game released in the mid-’90s. I remember playing the game growing up, wasting countless hours of my life only to find out it was impossible to beat without the cheat codes. There’s no doubt the game is past its heyday and is now replaced by FPSs like Halo and Half-life. So why release a movie based on a game a decade after it was cool?

Who cares? The Rock is in it!

Through some genius casting, the former WWE wrestler and people’s champ has a starring role as Sarge. According to the Internet Movie Database, the Rock passed on the part of the good guy in this movie to be the bad guy instead. Kudos to him for taking chances in the acting department.

Last year as a guest on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” the Rock promoted his movie Walking Tall by saying it had “blue collar ass-whoopings,” not gory violence.

For this movie the Rock put those standards in check because Doom, like the video game, is creative in its violence. In the best scene of the movie, he shoots an innocent looking soldier in the neck after the soldier refused to exterminate a group of women and children.

How’s that for laying the smack down?

Not only that, but as the first R-rated film he’s starred in, the Rock actually cusses! This should be a breakthrough to the legions of wrestling fans tired of hearing their superstars getting bleeped every time they say “I’m gonna kick your ass.”

The Rock takes full advantage of the F-bomb, reaching a new level of hilarity with one-liners that would make Schwarzenegger blush.

For those who expect a faithful recreation of the game: Prepare to be disappointed.

The plot of the computer game involves a group of scientists on Mars who somehow open a portal to hell, thereby inviting a bunch of impish creatures into the world.

The movie’s plot dismisses any use of the occult. Instead, it focuses on scientists who add a 24th chromosome to human DNA, thus creating super-humans and, indirectly, a bunch of impish creatures. There are also some plot elements borrowed from Alien, where people can get infected by these things and turn in to the creatures themselves.

Actually, the movie just makes up its own plot as it goes along. Like many action/horror films, it confuses you into submission until you accept whatever is happening on screen.

But that’s OK because the movie does what it’s supposed to do – it mixes humor and gore with a few mildly scary scenes. It is the perfect combination for Halloween and an excuse to take out your boyfriend or girlfriend (if you like watching people die while you make out).

Contact ALL correspondent Sean Ammerman at [email protected].