DOOM is not tricky to understand. A corporation brought demons to Mars, and there’s a badass fucking Marine hellbent on stopping them.
But there are multiple things which make it tricky to adapt into a film. A non-verbal, almost indestructible protagonist. Satanic imagery. Hell. The sheer level of violence.
They are things which realistically need balancing out across a film. Perhaps the Slayer is Dredd, relying on other characters growing around him whilst he remains stoic. Maybe he’s Jack Sparrow, who isn’t the main story but interacts with it. You could use any desert to represent Mars or Hell with some CGI augmentation. You don’t need to use every enemy, and can easily keep some back for a sequel.
Plenty of ideas. So how have we had two films and they haven’t managed it!
I’m a reasonable guy. I want to see the best in any film. For any film to actually be made and released is a miracle. I can see all the Easter eggs, and I can see the affection from the Writer/Director. What’s also clear are the restrictions. Licensing issues have restricted him to using the first three games, which leads to leaning on DOOM 3 heavily (not the best representation of the series). Then there’s the budget. Annihilation looks like it was made for about £20, and it does OK with that. But DOOM probably needs £50million to correctly convey the scope and effects.
They could have at least airbrushed the BFG to not look like the light plastic/foam it clearly is. I’ve seen enough Adam Savage to know it’s doable!
Anyway, Annihilation, which it turns out shares similarities with MK: Annihilation, tries. Like MK:A, it has far less budget than it’s predecessor, yet is intent on trying to do more with it. I can respect that, even if it doesn’t lead to a good end result.
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