Doomsday [Blu-ray]

What a gloriously stupidly great film. Yes it stitches up bits from Escape From New York, The Mad Max trilogy, a number of Zombie flicks and throws in a bit of medieval nonsense, but it's entertaining, silly, bloody, ridiculous FUN. It's one of those movies that if you `'get it'' and are willing to forgive it a multitude of sins, not least some woeful acting from Bob Hoskins and Darren Morfitt you'll have a whole lot of old fashioned exploitation fun.

I mean in what other movie do you have a gleaming black Bently Coupe being chased by a rag tag band of evil punks in the cars from The Road Warrior all set to Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Two Tribes. Great.

Americans have not taken to Doomsday for some reason, maybe the audiences where expecting something serious and in the vein of Marshall's last film, The Descent, but Europeans who appreciate that Neil Marshall's tongue is firmly planted in his cheek are lapping it up. Enjoy

Yes, this writer/director has been responsible for two of the best low budget horror movies of recent years. In Dog Soldiers, he melded the combat film with the werewolf movie and came out with something startlingly good. In The Descent, he crafted what was quite simply one of the scariest films of all time. So what then are we to make of Doomsday? This futuristic shocker features an amalgam of scenes lifted wholesale from other (frankly better) films -to be specific, 28 Days Later, Aliens, Escape From New York, Army of Darkness and Mad Max 2;The Road Warrior. They're all here and all of them are instantly recognizable, so much so that you cannot pass it off as coincidence. Some viewers will utter the word 'homage,' but the less charitable among us will prefer to say 'rip-off.'

As you watch Doomsday unfold, you can't stop asking yourself what Marshall hoped to accomplish here. The film must have had a decent budget and it looks great. Furthermore, he has an undeniable flair for action sequences. But though the film can never be accused of being dull, neither does it feature anything that is remotely surprising, largely because you've seen it all before. In the case of the climactic car chase, it is quite simply, Mad Max 2, down to the last detail. It's as though Marshall decided to recreate key scenes from all his favorite movies and while you grudgingly admit, he's done a fair job of copying them, you can't help yearning for a bit of originality, something that his last two films had in abundance.

The star of the movie Rhona Mitra plays it straight as tough as nails warrior who leads the charge from segment to segment. I have never seen a woman take so much pain and only have few scratches. A few more positive reviews and big American star (like Will Smith) could have push the movie over the top. Unfortunately we won't see a sequel and this is one that could have spawned one if it could have topped $40 million mark. After all they have made four SAW movies.

This feels like a serious hiccup in his career - and some murmurings about a planned sequel to The Descent don't bode well for his next offering either. The suspicion is that he's mirroring John Carpenter's career, a director who was brilliant when he had no money, but whose output became increasingly dismal as his budgets grew in size. It's a shame because few British directors get the autonomy to make films on this scale. My fingers are crossed for his future career, but on the strength of Doomsday, my expectations are not high right now.

If you've never seen Doomsday, it's great. Extremely violent, gory, post apocalypse movie packed with amazing action sequences that combine elements of other better known films such as Escape from New York, and The Road Warrior. Throw in graphic cannabalism, awesome 80's music, a strong female hero and Malcolm McDowell, and you've got pure mindless entertainment! A quick jab at all the critics of this movie - What did you expect out of a movie called 'Doomsday', anyways?

Aside from my opinion of the movie itself, this is a shining example of what blu-ray should be! The picture is consistently sharp, colors are vivid, and I did not see a SINGLE artifact or bit of digital noise. The audio is perfect - one of the better examples of dynamic surround sound I have experienced. And no matter how loud the background sound is, the speech is perfectly balanced. The only area lacking are the extras - they are ok, but it doesn't really matter when the picture and sound are this great.

This level of quality is what I expect from blu-ray. If you are looking for a disc to show off your tv and system, this is it. Kudos to Universal for setting the standard.