The people who made “Doom” hope that their movie will stand out from other films based on video games such as “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” “Resident Evil” and “Mortal Kombat.”
They hope, in other words, that the “Doom” movie doesn’t suck.
The movie opens Friday with a few encouraging elements that the junky subgenre hasn’t had until now.
First, they got the closest thing to a real-life video game character, wrestler-actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, to play the pivotal role of Sarge. It’s R-rated, in keeping with the demon-decimating game’s ultra-violent aesthetic. And there’s a bit of the distinctive first-person shooter, or FPS, perspective that made early play versions of “Doom” megahits in the 1990s.
One of the film’s producers, John Wells, is even known for quality TV shows such as “ER” and “The West Wing” and arty, character-driven films like “Far From Heaven.”
“But I love this kind of movie,” Wells says. “We’re all kind of kids in some way, and being able to talk to 7-foot-tall guys in big rubber suits and go to all of the visual effects houses and talk about ripping characters’ heads off … it’s fun.”
Like Wells, The Rock has been an avid Doom player for years.
“I was really psyched,” he says. “I thought we really had a good opportunity to make a good movie out of an epically successful video game.”
The Rock was so psyched that, for the first time on screen, he uses firearms in “Doom.” And not just any weapon, but the game’s legendary BFG, a.k.a. the Bioforce Gun.
“It wasn’t that I consciously thought I need to pick up a gun,” The Rock says. “By the way, not only do I pick up a gun, but I’ve gotta pick up the biggest gun ever known to man! It’s funny, like, what’s important to me. … I mean, it was a big, big gun. BFG. Yeah!”
BFG. FPS. “Doom” is full of such initializing. But to be clear, the BFG has nothing to do with FPS, since Sarge is not the movie’s hero. That would be one of his Space Marine subordinates, a character called Reaper, played by Karl Urban from “The Bourne Supremacy” and “The Lord of the Rings” films. He’s the guy whose point of view the audience shares as he fights his way through a Martian labyrinth full of mutants, zombies and deadly attackers.
As for the graphic violence that made Doom a lightning rod for the movement to put ratings on video games–and which prevented several earlier attempts to make a movie adaptation–the motto while filming was, kill ’em all.
“I thought it was very important to stay true and loyal to the video game, especially with a game that has pioneered the industry,” The Rock says. “The loyal gamers–and I’m one of them–want that. I wanted to be unapologetic in our approach.”
“We always assumed that this was going to be an R-rated picture,” Wells adds. “And we felt very strongly that to do ‘Doom’ as a PG-13 would just, on its face, mean that it sucked.”
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Edited by Curt Wagner ([email protected]) and Victoria Rodriguez ([email protected])