Phoenix, if they ever DO make a Quake movie, my first choice as the lead role would HAVE to be Gary Senise as Slipgater . His jaw is very defined and seems to have quite a mean look when he is angry, hehe.

What do you guys think?

~ Super Macho Tacoman

I saw it today, and it was far better than I expected. Granted, my expectations were very low, but I can confidently say that it rose above the level of a total shit B horror movie; it came out atleast one whole notch above Ghosts of Mars, Starship Troopers, and others of that caliber. I would even venture to say that it was better than the Matrix sequels, and possibly even Aliens 3 and 4. Given the relative lack of quality activity in the genre lately, I think it was one of the more enjoyable sci-fi experiences I've had in the last few years. I don't know if I'd compair it to War of the Worlds, Signs, or the Lord of the Rings movies (which aren't exactly in the genre anyway), but, it was a solid Aliens imitation.

I have to say I respect the job that the writer did tieing elements from the game together and turning it into a competant action movie, considering the shit he had to work with; in between game-isms that don't translate to film and contraints set by the producers and film industry to turn out something "marketable" that can apeal to the lowest common denominator, etc. Besides the interchanging of viral outbreak for hell, almost all of the elements from the game were included from the movie; the action, horror, mystery, etc... even the element of deathmatch combat makes an apearance. The obligatory cheese and stupidity which seems to be required for a horror/action flick was kept to a minimum.

The characters were actually handled pretty well; the cast of disposable characters were prevented from being offensively annoying or stupid and served their purpose of filling out dead time in the plot, and once their purpose was served, they promptly died in some entertaining fashion. The rookie kid of the squad wasn't nearly as annoying as the kid in the Matrix sequels. The old 'reformed criminal turned evengelical marine' character almost worked as a tragic and sympathetic character. The central characters; Sarge, "Reaper" and.....uh...Samantha, were also handled well. I really like how:

Spoiler:

A lot of people actually thought that the Rock would be the hero of the movie, and then he becomes a badguy in the end. He played the vilain role pretty well, and this twist totally flashes a finger to everyone's expectations.

Also, I have to say it was quite smart of David Calaham (the writer) to cast Rosumund Pike as "Reaper's" sister, eliminating any possibility of a cheesy love story spoiling the movie. The back story and relationship between Reaper and Samantha, while somewhat developed, was at most, merely hinted at, so IMO it struck the perfect balance between adding some amount of basic dimension to the characters and making them interesting, without getting in the way of the action with poorly executed 'drama' turned into cheese.

Lastly, while outside pressures prevented him from including the 'hell' element to the plot, Callaham smartly filled out the backstory to the virus in a way which one could interpret Hell to be a possible origin of the virus, even though there is no direct implication within the movie. This means that theoretically, a sequel which re-introduces the hell element from the games could be made without actually contradicting the virus story from the first movie. With a bigger budget, a better director, and the same writer (this guy seems to know what he's doing) there would be some hope for this aproach, though I will certainly not hold my breath waiting for it to happen.

Other random points I'd like the make:

- the transition to the first-person sequence was done very well. By bringing Reaper into it from a state of unconsciousness, it came off much less akward and disparate than it would have otherwise.

- the first person sequence itself was pretty cheesy and laughable, but had some fleeting instants of brilliance which were somewhat exciting. A better director could have executed it in a manner (probably with lots of 'shacky cam' effect) allowing it to be taken far more seriously, from a comic releif segment to an intense action squence. Had it not been filmed in such an over-ly clear, smooth "camera mounted on a cart" manner, it could have been pretty cool

- the rookie kid in the squad wasn't nearly as lame or annoying as the kid from the Matrix sequels (repeated for emphasis). He also made a good martyr for "insurection" later on.

- even though they only showed a few monsters from the game, they were all done pretty well and were pretty cool. Short of throwing fireballs, they did everything they did in the game. Even the mass zombie rush, while having been done in so many other movies allready, was decent.

- the deathmatch part could have been really cool had it been an intense, stealthy, 1 on 1 shootout, and not a martial arts fist fight.

- the BFG was pretty cool, particularly the melting effect, but it should have been used for a direct kill shot atleast once. Also, the plasma would have been cooler in green, and it would have been more dramatic if a maked 'charge-up' period preceded the blast.

- the inclusion of the BFG and chaingun were nice, and the fact that the assault rifles were all M4 and G36 hack jobs was forgiveable, but the Rocket Launcher was sorely missed. It's not Doom, or even Id, without the good old "RL". A plasma rifle would have been nice too.

That's all I have to say for now. Not too bad. Certainly far from perfect, but given how absolutely dirt poor shitty it could have been, it's pretty good.

I saw it tonight, and I thought it sucked. Bad.

I wasn't expecting it to rock, game-movies seldomly do (see Alone in the Dark, Streetfighter, Mortal Kombat), although there are some exceptions, like Resident Evil (which was quite acceptable). Anyway, I won't deal with the spoilers, but it's safe to say that there's very little resemblance to classic or renewed DooM's, nor anything interesting to make up for that. Nostalgia^2 would have saved any movie for me, regardless of sloppy dialogue, bad effects, nonsensical melee fights and the like- but that wasn't happening here. There are a few game references (as well as movie references within the genre), some annoyingly obvious, others good for a grin.
Overall, I thought it was about as worthless as Resident Evil Apocalypse. Ironically, it reminded me of that movie a lot, too. You can't not have seen it, if you're into DooM, but my advice is to just download a DivX: it's not worth a trip to the theatre.

yea pho , everyone knows texas rangers are bulletproof.

Welcome back, though I'm not sure what the "I told you so" is about exactly.  Maybe some elaboration would help.  

Oh yea, sorry.

I said a while back that the DooM movie would suck. I was driven off because of my overwhelming cynicism. I just came to claim you stand corrected.

It's good to be back.

[patronize]No, we'll see how YOU'LL do.[/patronize]