j* movie reviews 2020

Doom: Annihilation (2019)

She walks softly but she carries big gun - one of the biggest BFGs I've ever seen.

I was desperately seeking popcorn trash from 2019 I haven't seen... because without new cinema releases, like what else can you do? And this showed up and I watched the trailer, saw the size of the chick's gun and went "I'm in!" And sure, it's not the size of the gun it's how you use it and she does have a really good handle on it's ridiculous size, improbable weight, and the fact it shoots green plasma but isn't very sustainable as a weapon.

This story is a delightful nonsense that only bothers to posit a form of sci-fi for long enough to set the scene and to remind you of threats every twenty minutes or so. But it's based on a shoot-em-up computer gamey franchise, so honestly, what else would you expect. Our main crew is a gender-balanced bunch of military hunks, and one science nerd, sent to "the doomed moon" of Phobos. It's a teleportation turned gates of hell type situation. There's a hyper-driven evil (?) scientist, a lot of pseudo-zombies, interdimensional demons and a really big big bad devil type thing. They appear more or less in that order, which is order of importance.

This film also really milks this most hilariously, hilarious Australian character. He gets all the swearing and statements of obvious. Watching him was one of the high points of the movie, even if I felt he "didn't look Aussie enough." Look I don't know what that means either and I said it, but watching him I felt a little like a super-Aussie stereotype had possessed the body of an all American boy next door. It was a little conflicting. This entire film is populated by actors you don't know. And I often do find that refreshing... to not have any baggage attached to the characters via their previous characters.

Our main character is the delightful Joan Dark (Amy Manson), insubordinate military leader. Her crew hates her, her science-boy-ex might still like her, and she has a dark past with her mother and god. After they get to the moon-base it's battle-stations all around, rescue survivors, kill zombies, escape demons. There's a lot of shooting with large guns. There's a lot of death of all kinds. I found quite a few good jump scares. One by one the team is picked off, somewhat naturally, and eventually Joan and the science boy have to go hardcore. This is when the epic BFG9000 comes in. Fun facts... BFG = Big Fucking Gun. Noice. Carry on with the death and destruction and eventually some things come out in the wash... or do they?

I did tune out a few times because it does get all a bit samey. But I was generally quite enamoured with Joan's stoicism, and I do like a good "science opening the gates of hell with connections to ancient cultures" romp.

J* gives it 3 stars.

PS. Apparently I have forgotten I ever saw a Doom film with Dwayne The Rock Johnson - how is that possible?