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Released in 2004 as a vehicle for Karl Urban, back when he was Eomer rather than Bones McCoy, and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, back when he was simply The "Dwayne Johnson" Rock, Doom was the latest part of a long and glorious tradition of people trying to turn videogames with plots that boil down to "Go here, shoot this thing, go there, shoot that thing" into movies which tried to justify why its characters went there to shoot that thing. Despite coming closer than any film previously to recreating the experience of watching someone play a videogame, Doom somehow failed to bring about a new dawn for videogame adaptations. Yet, we may learn from its failure. We may learn about the world, but more importantly, we may learn about ourselves.

Finally, that adaptation of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle that we've all been champing at the bit for

The characters in Doom display an unusual flexibility when it comes to their defining characteristics, in that they don't really have defining characteristics until Reaper (Karl Urban) spends any time with them. The character of Goat (Ben Daniels), for example, starts the film off as just one of several faceless marines (figuratively faceless; the film would be far more disturbing - and therefore interesting - if the supporting cast looked like the extras in that section of Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind where Jim Carrey starts re-entering his old memories after they've been deleted) following The Rock and Faramir around, and other than looking a bit old and weathered he isn't all that special. He certainly doesn't do anything to suggest that he is religious, and he definitely doesn't do anything to establish him as a fervent I-have-taken-the-Lord's-name-in-vain-so-I-must-carve-things-into-my-flesh type, until he is alone with Karl Urban as the sole witness to his madness.

Similarly, Kid (Al Weaver) takes drugs to keep himself sharp fairly early on in the film, yet doesn't act in any way high until after Bones accuses him of being so, at which point he starts rolling his head around and slurring his words like Nick Nolte doing a Lindsay Lohan impersonation. This raises two distinct possibilities; either Reaper is some sort of psychic who is able to cause people to act in ways that are counter to how they would usually act, which is not really supported by the rest of the film (though nothing much else is, really), or, more likely, the screenwriters decided to apply Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which can be interpreted as saying that the observance of an event can alter the properties of it, to their screenplay. Merely by observing them, Reaper fundamentally alters the nature of the people around him in ways which are narratively convenient. It's that, or we assume that the screenwriters didn't know what the hell they were doing, but I think we can give the men who wrote Doom a little more credit than that.

There is such a thing as a Martian accent

It's a sad fact that, try as they might, sometimes the people who make films can't get exactly the right person for any given role. Sometimes they get lucky and cast The Rock, who is perfect for any role. (The, can I call you "The"? If you're reading this, I've got a script for a remake of The Sound of Music that will blow you away. You get to play Maria and Leisl!) Other times, they might find someone who has the right look, but has a voice that is wholly inappropriate. (Oddly, this has never stopped Adam Sandler from getting work. Seriously, the guy sounds about as lively as drywall looks.) In such an instance, would you keep looking in the hopes that you might find someone who both looks AND sounds perfect, or make do with what you have? The makers of Doom took the latter option, casting Rosamund Pike, a talented English actress, as a scientist who is required to sound at least vaguely American. Her accent is...interesting, to say the least, veering from coast to coast and across the Atlantic Ocean depending on how terrified she is required to be.

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