.. Thanks for asking ;)
"Doomsday" huh? Well, now this is a toughie.. On the one hand I liked the thought of a "Escape From New York" for this millenium (and Rhona Mitra is fit) and Neil Marshall has proven himself adept at turning seemingly formulaic concepts into something special..
One the other, well, what can I say that you havenīt already? Decidedly off pacing, seizure-inducing editing (aka the Michael Bay school of action) and lots of references to other, better movies..
In essence, I have the same problem with this as I do with "Kill Bill". When I watched the two installments I got these flashes:
"Ooh, itīs the theme to "Death Rides A Horse".."
"Now itīs "Navajo Joe!"
"Thereīs the model city from "Godzilla!"
"Thereīs Gordon Liu from "The 36th Chamber"and Sonny Chiba from "G.I Samurai"..!!
And I found myself wanting to watch those movies instead.. "Kill Bill" to me, is all homage and slick surface, but no substance (Oh gods, you wouldnīt believe the amount of crap Iīve received from fanboys for expressing this). "Doomsday" made me feel the same way.
I also think that having a bigger budget and free reign played its part too. As it did for the Wachowskis and the "Matrix" sequels ;)
Iīm also reminded of "Natural Born Killers" which also piled on the eye candy and left me feeling dizzy after the first act..
I like to think that that the abbreviated opening is a homage to the same in "Escape..", which suffered cuts to the opening too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1drBZe23dao
John Carpenter was the master of creating marvellously lean, mean, minimalist and tight fare (examples below); scripts that merely provided the bare bones of a story, movies that dropped the audience in the deep end and made them fill in the blanks. Iīm guessing that mr Marshall tried to channel the master a bit too much ;)
The suits probably played their part in this too, but rapid fire editing is the way itīs done these days. *sigh*
I could wax on and on about this but Í think Iīll call it today.. After these messages ;)
Lean JC fare here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PWyMHLXA7k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LydgEmQWOp0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkqN1Yq6XCc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckvDo2JHB7o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouZkkIsLiNg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L86AAGZ9BBg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5I3Lt8PwyQ
Good to hear from you again (hope youīre not to burdened by the rigors of life and career) and yes, Iīm back to what passes for normal ;)
īTil next time,
Geek (enjoying unblocked nostrils once more) out.
Suzi F 01:57:00 08/05/2008
