DOOMSDAY (2008)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

"I had this vision of these futuristic soldiers with high-tech weaponry and body armour and helmets—clearly from the future—facing a medieval knight on horseback."-- Neil Marshall.

I don't know anything about English writer-director Neil Marshall's reading-habits, but the scenario he concocted for DOOMSDAY sounds like he was raised on a diet of JUDGE DREDD comics. This futuristic adventure-comic was notable for having its hero run across all sorts of fanatical cultures, usually based on the most tenuous sociological concepts.  

In 2008 (the same time as the film's debut), Scotland is infested with a killer virus. England quarantines the entire territory, which for some reason makes all other countries mad at England-- a counter-intuitive touch these days, after current audiences' experiences with Covid and the way China skated clear of blame. About thirty years pass, during which English intelligence keeps satellite watch on the isolated Scots. Despite the quarantine, the virus begins to infect English citizens. Motivated to seek any kind of cure, intelligence agents discover that the Scottish people, though devolved to savagery, don't seem to be suffering ill effects any more. Since a noted Scottish doctor named Kane (Malcolm McDowell) resided in the country at the time of the quarantine, government officials speculate that Kane may have developed a cure. They decide to send a covert task force into Scotland to find and interrogate Kane, a force commanded by Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), herself a former native of Scotland, who has personal motivations for entering her old haunts.

Sinclair and her men soon butt heads with the savage Scots, most of whom look like a cross between eighties Punks and the reavers of a MAD MAX film. Most of the English soldiers are killed, but Sinclair, two of her command, and a young Scots native escape the marauders. Young Cally (MyAnna Buring of WITCHVILLE) happens to be one of two grown children of Kane, the other being Sol, leader of the marauders.

The knights-in-armor part of the story commences when Cally leads Sinclair and her remaining aides to Kane, who for some unknown reason has decided to concoct a whole subculture based on the Arthurian mythos. Kane not only doesn't want to go back to England with Sinclair, he tells her the only "cure" is natural immunity. He then imprisons his daughter and Sinclair's two allies, and sentences Sinclair to fight an armored executioner. Sinclair wins the fight, and she leads her remaining team into an "escape from Scotland" in road- warrior conveyances. 

There are some subplots about dirty dealings in the government, a few of which involve Bob Hoskins in a glorified support-role, but as social commentary DOOMSDAY is less insightful than the average JUDGE DREDD comic. Without giving away the precise ending, I'll just say that it depends on Sinclair switching allegiances in a manner that Marshall utterly fails to foreground.

DOOMSDAY flopped at the box office, but it does have some above-average action-scenes, even if some go over the top even for this type of picture. (Could even a male hero be strong enough to punch an armored knight in his visor and not have his hand broken?) Mitra projects a good deal of heroic elan, though, and she showed this same quality to good effect in UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS, though she has yet to essay a really memorable heroine.