Sunday, October 16, 2005

Universal Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is Sarge and Karl Urban is Reaper in "Doom," the science fiction action-adventure film based on the explosive computer game.

You're 'Doom'-ed

But the question is whether you'll be happy about it when the film hits theaters Friday

By Bob Strauss / Los Angeles Daily News

Universal A look at the First Person Shooter perspective of the film "Doom," the science fiction action-adventure film based on the explosive computer game sensation. Here, moviegoers explore the research station and hunt the Imp through the eyes of the on-screen characters. Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

The people who made "Doom" hope that their movie will stand out from other films based on video games such as "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider," "Resident Evil" and "Mortal Kombat."

They hope, in other words that the "Doom" movie doesn't suck. Audiences will decide how well they did when the film opens Friday. But it goes into the marketplace with a few encouraging elements that the junky subgenre hasn't had until now.

First, they got the closest thing to a real-life video game character, wrestler-actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, to play the pivotal role of Sarge. It's R-rated, in keeping with the demon-decimating game's ultra-violent aesthetic. And there's a bit of the distinctive First Person Shooter perspective that made early play versions of "Doom" megahits in the 1990s.

One of the film's producers, John Wells, is even known for such quality television shows as "ER" and "The West Wing" and arty, character-driven films like "Far From Heaven."

"You don't think fun movies," when you hear my name, Wells cracks. "But I love this kind of movie. We're all kind of kids in some way, and being able to talk to 7-foot-tall guys in big rubber suits and go to all of the visual effects houses and talk about ripping characters' heads off ... it's fun."

Like Wells, Johnson has been an avid "Doom" player for years.

"I was really psyched," The Rock says. "I thought we really had a good opportunity to make a good movie out of an epically successful video game."

Johnson was so psyched that, for the first time on screen, he uses firearms in "Doom." And not just any weapon, but the game's legendary Bio-Force Gun, aka the BFG. Feel free to apply your own words to the initials.

"It wasn't that I consciously thought I need to pick up a gun," The Rock says before deploying his famous, eyebrow-accented grin. "By the way, not only do I pick up a gun, but I've gotta pick up the biggest gun ever known to man! It's funny, like, what's important to me ... I mean, it was a big, big gun. BFG. Yeah!"

BFG. FPS. "Doom" is full of such initializing. But to be clear, the BFG has nothing to do with FPS, since Sarge is not the movie's hero. That would be one of his Space Marine subordinates, a character called Reaper, played by "The Lord of the Rings' " Karl Urban. He's the guy whose point-of-view the audience shares as he fights his way through a Martian labyrinth full of mutants, zombies and worse deadly attackers.

"You can't have The Rock being the Doom Guy because the Doom Guy, when you play the game, is you," explains Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software, the Texas-based creators of the "Doom" games. "The character is an everyman character. You're not supposed to be some larger-than-life screen hero. But the Sarge character in the game is that sort of guy, so that's why it was good The Rock played him."

The subjective camera sequence was a matter of great concern to both the filmmakers and the id folks. It comes fairly late in the movie -- not too late to satisfy fans, hopefully, but at the right point when general audiences are ready for it.

"We had long conversations about how long the audience would be able to stay comfortable with the subjective camera sequence," Wells reveals. "It hasn't been done very much. And it's different if it's happening in front of you on a 14-inch monitor or if you're surrounded by it in the theater.

"So it was a matter of how long you can stay in it before it becomes so disorienting that you, one, lose the narrative train of the picture, and two, just become physically disoriented," the producer continues. "One of the things we looked at were subjective amusement park simulator rides. They had done an extensive amount of research on how much time people could actually stay in them before, when they got off, they fell down on the pavement."

Ironically, id was more skeptical than the filmmakers.

"We were like, 'Maybe this is too much for video game fans and not enough for everybody else,' " Hollenshead says. "But it seems to be far enough along in the movie that people get it at that point. If you started the movie with something like that, I think it would've been confusing."

As for the graphic violence that made "Doom" a lightning rod for the movement to put ratings on video games -- and which prevented several earlier attempts to make a movie adaptation, especially in the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre -- the motto while filming was, kill 'em all.

"I thought it was very important to stay true and loyal to the video game, especially with a game that has pioneered the industry," The Rock affirms. "The loyal gamers -- and I'm one of them -- want that. I wanted to be unapologetic in our approach."

"We always assumed that this was going to be an R-rated picture," Wells adds. "And we felt very strongly that to do 'Doom' as a PG-13 would just, on its face, mean that it sucked."

In the end, even the guys at id were amazed at how faithfully the movie reimagines their brutal but beloved baby.

"We had always known, and believed, that to rigorously enforce that the movie must be exactly like the video game was not a good idea," Hollenshead reveals. "We didn't really have a lot of reservations with respect to taking some creative liberty to make the experience more interesting and to adapt it more for the noninteractive medium style. We went in knowing things were going to be changed. We just wanted to make sure that they were cool and didn't make it, like, not 'Doom.' "