Doomsday: The Grunge of Scotland

The film features Rhona Mitra(Eden Sinclair), Bob Hoskins(Bill Nelson), Alexander Siddig(John Hatcher), Craig Conway(Sol), MyAnna Buring(Cally), and Malcolm Mcdowell(Kane). Neil Marshall directed and wrote, and Benedict Carver, and Steven Paul produced the film(IMDb). Rated-R.

All is well in Scotland, but when the "Reaper" virus infected the population, the government decides to build a wall around Scotland serving as a moat to protect England and the rest of the British Isles. However, 25 years later, well after the authorities believed the virus was extinct they were surprised to discover that the virus had resurfaced, and with only 48 hours before the virus begins to infect England, Major Eden Sinclair was recruited to find a cure, but the cure is in Scotland where part of the population has become cannibals.

The action scenes of the film were cut way too often to fully appreciate them, especially some of the fight scenes after Major Eden and her crew had initially entered Scotland. Furthermore, the lack of proper lighting in Kane's laboratory made that particular fight scene even more difficult to enjoy. During some of the fight scenes I could not help but think of how much I enjoyed the fight scenes in Rambo, and how Sylvester Stallone could have helped with technical advice.

While watching this film if you are reminded of Madmax, The Road Warrior, or Escape From NewYork, that is because the director was trying to combine some of the elements of the post apocalyptic films of the late 70's and and early to mid 80's, according to Wikipedia. This was also a cool way to pay homage to those films. The Medieval parts of the infected Scotland (influenced by the movie Excalibur) was centered around Scotland's Blackness Castle. It was a little weird, but what helped assuage the weirdness was the transition of using the supply tunnel. The supply tunnel beautifully bridged the grunge world and the medieval world.

The script was adequate for what the film intended, and the acting was solid for what the film intended. Rhona Mitra was awesome, and her character was tough, but her toughness may have been more pronounced if she had more fight scenes involving hand to hand combat, because that seemed to have been a great strength of the character. Rottentomatoes.com has given the film 4.5 out 10, and according to Movies.com the fans gave this film a B and critics gave it a D+, and I will give it a C-. Stay tuned, movieporium.blogspot.com.