GAMES: GameSpot | GameFAQs MUSIC: Last.fm | MP3.com MOVIES: Metacritic | Movietome TV: TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

DVD and Video

Upcoming Release Calendar
Awards & Bests By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Recent Releases in DVD and Video

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.



 

Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Doomsday
Universal Pictures

Doomsday reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 51 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
4.8 out of 10
based on 14 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 104 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for strong bloody violence, language and some sexual content/nudity

Starring Rhona Mitra, Bob Hoskins, Adrian Lester, Alexander Siddig, and Malcolm McDowell

Authorities brutally quarantine a country as it succumbs to fear and chaos when a virus strikes. The literal walling-off works for three decades--until the dreaded Reaper virus violently resurfaces in a major city. An elite group of specialists, captained by Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), is urgently dispatched into the still-quarantined country to retrieve a cure by any means necessary. Shut off from the rest of the world, the unit must battle through a landscape that has become a waking nightmare. (Universal Pictures)


GENRE(S): Action  |  Drama  |  Sci-fi  |  Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: Neil Marshall  
DIRECTED BY: Neil Marshall  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: July 29, 2008 
Theatrical: March 14, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: UK 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Marshall reveals himself to be a terrific showman of chaos and comic savagery. This is Baz Luhrmann's "Mad Max."
Read Full Review
75
Philadelphia Inquirer David Hiltbrand
One caveat: The film has more blood-splatter than a dozen zombie movies. If you can handle that, Doomsday's drunken mash-up of futuristic and feudal is surprisingly satisfying.
Read Full Review
70
Variety Dennis Harvey
Neil Marshall's flair for visceral action more than compensates for his script's lack of conceptual novelty in Doomsday. Principally South Africa-shot tale of a post-apocalyptic Great Britain cobbles together large chunks of "Escape From New York," "The Road Warrior," "28 Days Later" and "Resident Evil," but those with a taste for revved-up, splattery fantasy thrills won't be complaining.
Read Full Review
63
TV Guide Ken Fox
Marshall delivers what he promises and Mitri makes for a cool, kick-arse heroine in the Ellen Ripley mold.
Read Full Review
58
The Onion (A.V. Club) Steven Hyden
Marshall’s fixation on John Carpenter and early James Cameron is all too apparent, but his own distinctive cinematic style isn’t, making Doomsday a likeably rambling but generic shoot-’em-up.
Read Full Review
50
Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling
Marshall cribs whole sections from other movies (Aliens and The Road Warrior, most blatantly) so baldly that you have to wonder how he'd like it if someone ripped off "The Descent" this egregiously.
Read Full Review
50
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Marshall, like his characters, does not mess around: Good people do bad things to not-entirely bad people while the Man (in this case No. 10 Downing St.) seeks ways to screw everyone.
Read Full Review
50
ReelViews James Berardinelli
Doomsday tries to cram so much into its limited 105 minutes that aspects end up feeling rushed and confused (especially the political situation in England) and the ending is perfunctory.
Read Full Review
50
Film Threat Stina Chyn
As a guilty pleasure, it’s spectacularly entertaining
Read Full Review
50
Los Angeles Times Jan Stuart
Just to shake things up a little, I guess, the creators of the laughably over-the-top Doomsday thought it might be fun to turn the survivors of a deadly epidemic, rather than its victims, into maniacal murderers.
Read Full Review
50
The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
Mitra, clad in the requisite tight, sexy outfits, conveys a suitable toughness but little in the way of personality, while such distinguished British actors as Bob Hoskins and Adrian Lester dutifully show up to collect their paychecks.
Read Full Review
40
LA Weekly Jim Ridley
I still believe with all my heart that no movie with real car stunts, a tough-chick hero, and a severed head that thunks directly into the camera can be all bad. But this is pushing it.
Read Full Review
40
Empire Helen O'Hara
Marshall's film is crammed full of good ideas but doesn't have the cohesion to pull them all together. Less effective than "Dog Soldiers," never mind "The Descent."
Read Full Review
40
The New York Times Matt Zoller Seitz
In terms of story, “The Descent” and Doomsday are as different as two genre films can be, but the falloff in artistic quality is still quantifiable. Where “The Descent” was a slow, quiet, exquisitely modulated, startlingly original film, Doomsday is frenetic, loud, wildly imprecise and so derivative that it doesn’t so much seem to reference its antecedents as try on their famous images like a child playing dress-up. Homage without innovation isn’t homage, it’s karaoke.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 4.8 (out of 10) based on 104 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Anme-Marie M. gave it a9:
Loved this film. Gory but satisfying. Mad Max meets 28 Weeks Later. Absolutely loved Rhona Mitra - she has it all over Lara Croft as posh birth who kicks butt. A great surprise.

[Anonymous] gave it a0:
I am ashamed. I showed a friend this movie. Now he is dead from banging his head repeatedly against a wall. Terrible movie, show it to people you hate.

David H gave it a2:
Very bad!!!!!!!!!!!! i can't believe this was the guy who did the descent, that is such a good film! this is terrible! awful dialogue, script, acting...EVERYTYHING! it isn't even remotely scary! and i can't believe they played that 80's song when that punk guy was on stage! what was the song again? ne one? thatscene was awful! where as in the descent it was suspensful, intense, exciting and realistic or the similar movie 28 days later, which deeply taps into our fears of 'what would we do if this happened?' thanks to it's amazing direction, making it incredibly realistic and all the more fearful! here, the best attempt at tapping itno our deepest fears is a stereotypically cheesy punk guy on stage singing some cheesy 80's song while screaming and a mosh-pit crowd! ooh, how scary-80'S CHEESY POP SONG! DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE! it will be a complete waste of your time!

Brandon L gave it a7:
This movie did what it was supposed to do, entertain. It had more holes in the plot than any movie I have seen in the past 5 years but still managed to have great action, over the top characters, over the top gore, hot chicks with guns, car chases and explosions. For a guy looking to be entertained, you could only add gratuitous nudity and you have a future cult classic. The only other movie that I laughed at more, because of how outrageous it was, was Rambo. Both highly entertaining, but dumb as a bag of rocks.

Bob H gave it a4:
Take "Mad Max", "28 Days Later", and "Escape From New York", remove any semblance of plot, story structure, and all the interesting characters. Then add a heavy dose of contrived self-parody and camp and you have "Doomsday". This movie is absolutely dreadful. Mitra, although lovely as always, fails miserably while trying to pull off a female Snake Plissken. The usually reliable Hoskins tries to do his best with the pitiful role given him but comes up dry. The main villains are wholly unconvincing, BDSM-loving, cannabilistic carbon-copy Mad Max ripoffs while Malcolm McDowell leads a group of entirely superflous and totally useless medieval side-villains. I could drone on but honestly it's too painfully bad to try and reconvey here. I'm only giving it a solid 4 for the sheer comedic value. The excessive, cartoonish, 1970s exploitation film-style violence and gore is so delightfully bad it's good and the soundtrack is so incredibly campy and inappropriate it literally made my mouth gape wide open. I think the creators of this film started off trying to make a serious, badass post-apocalyptic movie and decided to just start goofing off halfway through filming. Definitely file this in the "so bad it's good" category.

Chris C. gave it a5:
Starts promisingly but then proceeds to steal all the best bits from Mad Max, 28 Weeks Later, The Running Man, Waterworld (ahem). Good tongue in cheek moments but the futuristic Glasgow is unconvincing - if you've ever been you'll know it's always like that!

Ernest S gave it a0:
Absolutely terrible, hardly anything made sense in this movie. I never knew Bently made slow automobiles.

Read more user comments...

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: MLB | Spore | iPhone 3G | Paris Hilton | Antivirus Software | GPS | Recipes | Shwayze | NFL

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2008 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use