Marshall is perhaps one of the most underrated, unnoticed, wildly creative directors of our time, and it sucks when I can watch something like “Doomsday” and frown that not many chose to see it with me. Currently one of my favorite directors in film, Marshall is 3 for 3 with a slyly tongue in cheek post-apocalyptic thriller that takes place during the end of a destructive disease called The Reaper which took most of the civilization in Glasgow. Closed off from society, the government’s plan to quarantine the country forever turned on them as the world suffered from over population and now the Reaper is back. “Doomsday” has elicited many comparisons to classics like “Mad Max,” and “Escape from New York,” and even fans of the film have agreed to these very apt comparisons.
Marshall aspires to tell his own foreign tale of the apocalypse and this barbaric society while acknowledging the immense influence the aforementioned classics had on this. The sardonic humor placed by Marshall who, himself, obviously didn’t take the premise seriously, is what makes “Doomsday” fantastic. We follow the female warrior Eden Sinclair who finds herself behind enemy lines when she discovers the survivors of the disease have formed a cannibalistic society intent on keeping out intruders. This allows Marshall to go hog wild allowing for the prevailing theme of foreigners dropping into a world not like our own right at our front door to rise once again. From “The Descent” to “Dog Soldiers,” Marshall has always had this fascination with revealing the worlds we don’t see, and here he’s a monkey in a madhouse showing a world of flesh eaters, trained warriors, and a society so filled with bedlam, they’ve lost all touch with their humanity.
As Eden delves deeper and deeper into the world, she finds she’s not particularly a foreigner among the xenophobes and struggles to prove her weight as a warrior. “Doomsday” takes directions that I never expected, and Marshall unfolds a world that’s made use of what they were left with, with some of the most gruesome imagery filmed in years. But what’s left in the hail of decapitations and gore is an instant classic that pays tribute to the apocalyptic smashes of the same ilk. From the castle, to the knights, right down to the sickly twisted ending that proclaimed the state of mind our heroine was in, it was beautifully clever and something I can always expect from Marshall. Darth Maul, Boba Fett, sit down next to Viper and let’s talk. Here you were all once at the throws of a creative man who had an epic narrative set. You were, or so we thought, supposed to be the primary antagonist who would be a real bitch for our heroes, and yet, you were underused.
Viper is probably one of the most disappointing characters because of the fact that Marshall fails to utilize the potential of the villain. As well, he also fails to implement the utter charisma and character that’s been the primary basis of anticipation for many movie goers. Talk about underused, the character of Viper has a real time to shine and falls much too quickly. I wanted more difficulty from Viper and the absolutely sexy Lee-Anne Liebenberg, I wanted her to be a thorn on the side of Sinclair, I wanted her to be the antithesis, and alas, we don’t get too much. This is a shame to see, especially from a man who knows how to utilize his characters in his films. “Doomsday” was a pure blast, and it will go perfectly with “Mad Max” and “Escape from New York” as a trio of apocalyptic balls to the wall action fests. Marshall has yet to cease impressing me, and “Doomsday” is a tongue in cheek action bonanza that I cheered on with fists in the air.