Reviews

Doomsday

Two-hour nihilistic melee

By ELIZABETH FLOCK | March 19, 2008

1.5 Stars

SEXY BUT UNINSPIRED: Rhona Mitra as Major Eden Sinclair.

Cult-favorite director Neil Marshall follows up his acclaimed post-apocalyptic The Descent with this graphic, bigger-budgeted mess. When in 2008 Scotland faces a viral outbreak that threatens to spread across Europe, the country is quarantined and its people left to die gruesomely. Twenty-seven years later, the “Reaper Virus” is back, and now it’s threatening England. Major Eden Sinclair (a sexy but uninspired Rhona Mitra) leads a team into Scotland to locate the barbarous survivors and find a cure; they have 48 hours to complete the mission before the virus menaces the entire planet. Marshall borrows copiously from ’80s classics like George Miller’s Mad Max and John Carpenter’s Escape from New York, outdoing them in violence and depravity, vainly yoking derivative scenes together in what becomes a two-hour nihilistic melee. At best a reminder of doomsdays past, at worst a symptom of what’s ailing the genre today. 105 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Circle + suburbs

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Topics: Reviews , Neil Marshall , doomsday , John Carpenter , More

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ARTICLES BY ELIZABETH FLOCK

MADE OF HONOR | May 07, 2008
Scottish-related gags and other dumb stuff

WHEELING THROUGH HISTORY | May 07, 2008
Vintage bicycles aren't just for lonely bike mechanics any more

THE GRAND | April 02, 2008
Painfully funny poker fanatics

DOOMSDAY | March 19, 2008
Two-hour nihilistic melee

ROLL ON | March 05, 2008
Skating toward a massacre

See all articles by: ELIZABETH FLOCK

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