Doomsday

 Doomsday (from Weird and Wonderful II: Fifty More Cult Films by George Hughes, available from www.freefall-productions.com on 28/12/20)

2008 / UK / 108 minutes

“Are you talking about people or pound notes?”

Director: Neil Marshall / Screenplay: Neil Marshall / Director of Photography: Sam McCurdy / Music: Tyler Bates / Production: Steven Paul and Benedict Carver for Rogue Pictures / Cast: Rhona Mitra (Eden Sinclair), Bob Hoskins (Bill Nelson), Malcolm McDowell (Kane), Alexander Siddig (John Hatcher), David Patrick O’Hara (Michael Canaris), Craig Conway (Sol), Adrian Lester (Norton), Nora-Jane Noone (Read), Sean Pertwee (Dr. Talbot), Lee-Anne Liebenberg (Viper), Leslie Simpson (Carpenter), Chris Robson (Miller), Martin Compston (Joshua), Axelle Carolyn Marshall (Podium Marauder).

Doomsday begins in Scotland in the then present day of 2008. A deadly virus has spread among the population, causing the rest of the UK to build a modern version of Hadrian’s Wall to keep the infected in. Skipping ahead to 2035, the film introduces us to Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), a top special forces soldier who narrowly escaped Scotland as a child.

   When the virus reappears in the overcrowded slums of London, out of his depth Prime Minister John Hatcher (Alexander Siddig) and his shadowy puppeteer Michael Canaris (David Patrick O’Hara) reveal to the military commanders that there are somehow survivors in Scotland. Kept secret from the public for years, the inexplicable presence of people alive north of the wall suggests the existence of a cure and Sinclair’s boss Bill Nelson (Bob Hoskins) sends her in to find it.

   At first only coming across abandoned cities, Sinclair and her team eventually encounter a ferocious tribe of cannibalistic marauders led by the psychotic Sol (Craig Conway). Like the people back in England, the marauders have been told by the leader they’re rebelling against that no one is alive on the other side of the wall.

    Escaping the marauders, Sinclair and the survivors from her squad travel further into Scotland in search of that leader, a former scientist named Dr. Kane (Malcolm McDowell) who had been studying the virus until he was abandoned by the English government. Kane is now hateful and insane and rules over his medieval- style followers from a castle. Capturing Sinclair, he explains to her that he never found a cure but he and his people survived through natural immunity.

   After defeating Kane’s best knight in gladiatorial combat, Sinclair escapes again, this time taking one of the locals with her in the hope of being able to synthesise a cure from her DNA. However, Kane’s followers pursue them and Sol and his marauders still stand between them and the wall. Meanwhile in London, Hatcher is infected and kills himself, allowing Canaris to dispense with the pretence of an elected figurehead and completely take over. As Nelson explains to Sinclair, even if she makes it back and a cure is found, Canaris will deliberately withhold it until the virus has “Done it’s work” and thinned out the population…

   A terrifically silly Sci- Fi / Actioner when it was released, Neil Marshall’s homage to his favourite ’80’s films has become significantly less funny over the past year with it’s eerily prescient depiction of a pariah state UK ruled over by a corrupt and incompetent government during a deadly pandemic.

    Having made his name with the superbly entertaining werewolf semi- comedy Dog Soldiers (2002) and the straight up Horror of The Descent (2005), Marshall next turned his attention to the concept of rebuilding Hadrian’s Wall in a futuristic setting. While there’s nothing at all original about the result, Doomsday is a brilliantly fun mash-up of ideas from Escape from New York, Aliens, Mad Max and Excalibur.

   Marshall litters the film with references to his directing idols- most obviously, two members of Sinclair’s team are named Carpenter and Miller. This was a tradition actually started by John Carpenter- there are characters called Cronenberg and Romero in Escape from New York (my own- much less well known- dystopian feature Remnants had come out a year earlier and I also included a character named after Carpenter).

   Doomsday’s Scottish scenes were filmed in South Africa (the road markings and uncharacteristically good weather being the biggest giveaways) and Marshall packs the film with one explosive action sequence after another, clearly having a great time bringing the kind of movies he grew up with back to cinemas through a post-modern filter of knowing British humour.

   Dismissed by critics upon release, Doomsday has since built up a considerable following on DVD for it’s sheer unpretentious entertainment value. It’s a film that knows it’s got nothing new to say but doesn’t really care. But in an era in which J.J. Abrams (who works almost exclusively in established franchises to begin with and then just rehashes their old ideas) is hailed as a genius by the punditry, there does seem to be a certain double standard at work.

   I suppose the difference between an Abrams film and a Marshall film is a bit like the difference between watching a competent but one- trick tribute band and a standard issue but more versatile covers band. One’s taking themselves very seriously whilst the other’s just having a bit of fun. To use another musical analogy, it’s like comparing the Foo Fighter and Nickelback- nothing new or particularly interesting about either but the media all conform into the same pattern of heaping praise on one for thinking they’re something special while pouring scorn on the other for not taking themselves seriously.

   In any case, after directing the more serious but still underseen Romans vs. Picts budget battle epic Centurion (2010), Marshall disappeared into US television work where he helmed, amongst other things, some of the most action- orientated episodes of Game of Thrones (2011 - 2019).

   Rhona Mitra is the closest cinema has ever got to a female Snake Plissken as Sinclair and she clearly relishes the part of a non nonsense anti-heroine on a mission. The original live action model for Lara Croft, Mitra’s unique look had quickly propelled her from underwhelming British TV dramas in the ’90’s to several small Hollywood parts in the 2000’s. And while Doomsday remains her only high- profile lead role, she is outstanding in it.

   Bob Hoskins is also superb as the emotional centre of Doomsday, Sinclair’s thoroughly decent superior officer and the only honest man surrounded by the shower of useless incompetents and evil bastards running the government. Hoskins was in the first film I ever saw in a cinema (Who Framed Roger Rabbit? at Christchurch’s Regent Centre in 1989) and remains one of my favourite British actors of all time, whether in his workmanlike supporting roles in Pink Floyd: The Wall and Oliver Stone’s Nixon or when taking on the explosive lead part of Harold Shand in The Long Good Friday. Hoskins died in 2014 but left an incredible body of work from a five decade career.

   Malcolm McDowell brings his usual brand of dependable villainy as the Colonel Kurtz- like Dr. Kane too, a formerly good bloke long ago betrayed by the system and now consumed with bitterness. The character brings to mind McDowell’s earlier role as Soran (the man who killed Captain Kirk) in Star Trek: Generations (1994). Interestingly, McDowell here stares alongside his nephew, fellow Trek veteran Alexander Siddig for the first- and so far, only- time, although they never share a scene.