by Karyn L. Beach

For some reason, movies about an apocalyptic future always involve some devastating virus. Not a run of the mill – get a fever, have a few chills, and spend a lot of time running in and out of the bathroom virus – but a virus that breaks out all over your skin and turns you into some flesh-eating, cannibalistic,  light-shunning, subhuman creature. The latest entry in this genre is Doomsday.

The year is 2035. It seems as if Scotland was besieged by a fatal plague some 27 years ago. The entire country was quarantined and the people left to either die or fend for themselves. But there is a problem; the virus has reappeared, in London. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister (Alexander Siddig) and his advisor (David O’Hara) have been sitting on a secret. There are, apparently healthy, survivors living in Scotland – so there must be a cure. Now, they need someone to go into Scotland and bring back the cure. So they contact Police Chief Nelson (Bob Hoskins) who dispenses his best officer, Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) to lead the team on a 48-hour mission into Scotland.

Once they enter the quarantined land, the team encounters, the usual flesh-eating anarchist punks (who have a penchant for British 80’s pop music) and a group of medieval-inspired survivors complete with castles, horses and jousting!

Doomsday had me at the beginning and then it lost me. I’m not a fan of these kinds of movies; but even I could see the obvious nods to Escape from New York and the Mad Max movies. Yeah, and Rhona Mitra (best known for her work on The Practice and Boston Legal) is doing her best as the bad-ass female heroine in the tradition of Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton and most recently Milla Jovovich (the Resident Evil chick) and Kate Beckinsdale from Underworld. She was game and did some good tough girl stunts but it wasn’t enough.

I guess I really checked out when the bad guy, Sol (Craig Conway) started his nihilistic cabaret show with the peppy Good Thing from the Fine Young Cannibals. For a group of dangerous and violent punks, I expected music with a little more of an edge.

There are a few good action scenes (including an over-the-top car chase at the end) but a lot of the hand-to-hand fighting was obscured by dim lighting making it very hard-to-follow.

With nothing truly unique or remotely memorable, I feel Doomsday is doomed to fill the racks of the Wal-Mart discount DVD bin at some point in the not-so-distant future.