Doom: Annihilation is Really Not Worth Watching

Look, I know video game movies are awful, OK? There are so very few I can think of that are worth watching. Detective Pikachu, I guess. The first Resident Evil movie is pretty good, too. I liked the cheesy silliness of the 2005 Doom movie. That was fun. Since I got reminded of this recently, I went ahead and watched Doom: Annihilation, which is on Netflix. This was what some people would call "a mistake."

Doom: Annihilation - A Bad, Baaaad, Movie (In a Bad Way)

Doom: Annihilation is really bad. It's not even like the 2005 movie where it's fun bad. This is just bad, bad. A low-budget Syfy channel quality movie, Doom: Annihilation seems to not really know anything about Doom other than "there are demons, I guess?" and then promptly messes that up as well. So what's wrong with the movie? Well, a lot.

The movie follows a bunch of space marines as they get assigned to a job on Phobos because the main character, named Joan Dark, messed up a job and let a terrorist free or something. For the record, I only remember the main character's name because she shares the name of the main character from the Perfect Dark games. I'm pretty sure this isn't intentional in any way. Everyone hates Dark, but it's hard to care because of the 15 or so marines, all but three will be dead within the next 20 minutes. One of them actually records a message saying that he's three days away from retirement.

After way too much of characters wandering around and muttering military jargon we finally get some action when a bunch of zombies shows up. I hope you weren't actually expecting demons to show up because the movie doesn't have many of those. Just a lot of zombies. Notably, it's the same couple of actors getting gunned down and throat punched in different locations. They don't do a very good job of hiding it.

Doom: Annihilation - Some Incredibly Stupid Moments

At least it provides you with a bunch of apparently super badasses doing really dumb things and getting killed because of it. Don't you just hate it when you forget to reload your gun? Because about three different people die when zombies get them after they forgot to reload their guns. On at least two occasions, the zombies sort of lightly jab their fingers into someone's side, and the person just kind of drops on the spot, like they were shot in the head. They didn't seem like bad injuries, guys.

Hilariously, the movie keeps dropping references to the game in awkward and unfulfilling ways. The chainsaw shows up, only to immediately be used on a zombie and never brought up again. A big deal is made about the super shotgun, then the guy who is two days from retirement dies without getting to use it in any interesting way. My favorite part of the movie is easily when a zombie is gunned down, one of the marines asks, "who was that!?" and then someone else looks directly at the camera and says, "That was doctor John Carmack." C'mon guys, you literally fight Romero in the game, why go with Carmack?

After most of the marines are dead, demons finally start showing up. They're just imps, don't get excited. The costumes make them look like wrinkly old people with gray skin. Sometimes they throw fireballs. The fireballs can either explode and gib people, or just sort of make them go oof and fly backward. It depends on the plot armor.

I'm going to skip to near the end. There's an evil British dude really into unethical science who gets shot but just sort of stands back up again and is totally OK. Joan Dark gets a BFG, but it doesn't really do anything, and she wastes all the ammo on imps. She ends up in Hell and there are just more imps. Then it turns out Hell is a bad green-screen effect and she teleports to Earth. The movie ends on a dumb cliffhanger.

The Verdict

Doom: Annihilation is a movie, I guess. It's not a good movie. It's a really bad one. If you enjoyed watching low-budget Syfy original movies, you may get a kick out of it. Not for any good reason mind you. Bring a friend and bring some alcohol. Actually, bring a lot of alcohol. You're going to need it.

Did you watch Doom: Annihilation? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!