With ‘Dog Soldiers’ writer director Neil Marshall showed that with a little imagination, a few dollars and a remote location that he can make a very effective horror thriller. Marshall avoided the ‘sophomore jinx' with his next film, ‘The Descent’, which had a storyline similar to that of ‘Dog Soldiers’ this time working with a few more dollars and the headliners of this film being the fairer sex as opposed to a bunch of dirty ugly soldiers. Well after sitting Neil Marshall’s third film, in what I’m sure will be a long and glorious career despite this movie, we have ‘Doomsday’. Now I’m happy to see that my man chose to branch out from the subject matter of those two previous films, and I’m also glad to see he obviously had way more cash to work with than those previous films combined. However as a play on a famous quote by Orson Welles, with limitations being lifted in the form of an increased budget for Mr. Marshall, his creativity has taken a hit with a film that is plenty explosive and bloody, but painfully derivative.

In 2008 a virus has destroyed most of the population of Scotland leading the government to quarantine it, and it’s citizens, off from the rest of the world by building a huge wall, welded shut, that makes the Great Wall of China look like backyard fence. One woman was able to convince some soldiers to take her young daughter with them while they were evacuating the land, a girl we will come to know quite well. In the years that will follow the wall will remain, the waterways will be blocked, the airspace will be declared a no fly zone while the citizens on the other side were left to fend for themselves, eventually feeding on each other and to the best of our knowledge simply die off.

Twenty Five years later that little girl has grown up to become super tough badass Major Eden Sinclair, who looks exactly like actress Rhona Mitra, which means she

grew up fabulously flawless. A top cop for the city’s assault team, Major Sinclair lives in an England which is cut off from the rest of the world due to the virus, since nobody wants to take a chance on that thing coming to their nation, and with half of the land cut off, over population is in full effect, and the economy is in chaos while the city is on the verge of complete anarchy. Worse still is the fact that the killer virus has popped up on this side of the wall, and considering the effects are almost immediate and always fatal, something must be done. Prime Minister Hatcher (Alexander Siddig) along with his right hand man Canaris (David O’Hara) have knowledge that there are survivors, twenty five years hence, on the other side of that wall which means there must be a cure. Through Major Sinclair’s Boss (Bob Hoskins) they dispatch her and a crack team of commandos to find something that they can bring back to cure this horrible disease.

Across the wall this squad goes to a place that hasn’t been touched for twenty five years, or so they thought. Those surveillance photos really suck because there aren’t just a couple of survivors but hordes and hordes of them, and they like to kill and eat human flesh, and have rock concerts, and have medieval cage battles and do all kinds of wacky stuff. Regardless, they still need a cure on the other side of that wall ‘cause all hell has broke loose up there, and Major Sinclair will battle as many cannibalistic knights of the round table that she has to in order to complete her mission.

Well I suppose if one is going to lift bits and pieces, or chunks as it were, off of a few movies you may as well lift off of movies that were pretty good. The killer virus and violence surrounding it were eerily reminiscent of 28 days, and probably more so the sequel '28 Weeks later’. Then of course there’s nothing like sending a crazed, emotionally damaged mercenary into a city filled with lawless retards to retrieve some precious package, ala Snake Pliskin in ‘Escape from New York’. And once you see the painted up out of control goons that inhabit Scotland, especially once they jump into their bastardized hot rods, though you may wonder where the hell the gas came from, you will have visions of Mad Max being the warrior of the road while trying to get beyond thunderdome. Yes, ‘Doomsday’ is loud and stupid and derivative and unoriginal and completely unfocused but that doesn’t mean it lacks entertainment. No sir. You see there’s not a hell of a lot of, say, exposition in this film. The story is there but it is negligible in that there are cars to crash, heads to lop off, guns to fire, and people to eat.

The performances are also negligible despite the presence of fine British thespians Bob Hoskins, Malcolm McDowell and Adrian Lester – and might we add if ever there was a Black Guy who might survive one of these movies, it’s Adrian Lester – but the performances were only there again to link the action and stay to out of the way us looking at how incredibly fit Rhona Mitra is. Mitra was a suitable heroin whose character lacked depth but then how much depth did Dirty Harry have?

‘Doomsday’ is a 100 minute carnival ride which is probably about as ridiculous a movie that you have seen in some time. Snake Pliskin meets King Arthur meets Mad Max meets the Killer Virus. If that questionable mix doesn’t cause you some concern, then there’s fun to be had with ‘Doomsday’.