EXTERIOR. SAN VICENTE BLVD - DAY

EXTERIOR. SAN VICENTE BLVD - DAY

Mr. Macho, once proud, now bruised, battered, his clothes clawed to shreds, staggers into foreground. He shrieks into the lens.

MAN
LESBIANS!!!

Pan up to reveal a thousand Sisters of Sappho cresting the hill behind him. Dykes on Bikes, Lipstick Lovelies, Bi-curious Hollywood Housewives, thunder forward like the hordes of Genghis Khan, uttering battle cries that challenge the Dolby sound system.

The man lurches past three beautiful women, PARIS, BRITNEY, and LINDSAY.

PARIS
That’s hot!

 

Britney and Lindsay are not so sure. That’s way too much pussy before cocktail hour. They hightail it into the Pacific Design Center.

The lesbian cavalry turn on a dime in Hot Pursuit, grinding a flock of nearby vulture paparazzi into road kill.

They jack up their front wheels and smash through the glass walls of the Design Center, in an homage to those 180 degree, slow-motion, round and round the shattering glass/billowing explosion shots that were style du jour in the early 2000’s action pictures.

As you can tell, I’ve always wanted to direct for The L-Word. Perhaps this writing sample will do the trick.
Actually, I like hanging out with lesbians. Why? Because, like all women, they have more empathy than men. Empathy is a quality this world, and this business of ours, is sorely short of.

And really good directors of outrageous action flicks are not a dime a dozen either, which is why DOOMSDAY’s Neil Marshall should be singled out for special praise. I love genre cocktails, and DOOMSDAY is Mad Maxine 28 Years Later, with a dash of V For Vengeance, violently shaken then served over ice. Cool is the word for this high camp /dry camp propulsive splatter piece that totally understands what its target audience wants. More! That’s what we want on these occasions. Give us More! And he does, piling set piece on set piece, full of black hearted laughs.

But some movie critics don‘t live in Marshall‘s universe. They have lost touch with their inner 17 year old.

These critics are the eunuchs at the orgy. They can‘t do it, so they bitch about people who can. Their complaints run the full gamut of myopia. The exploding rabbit was poor taste, missing the fact that this sub-genre operates in tightly controlled Bad Taste. ( Vaporizing the Easter Bunny on Palm Sunday opening weekend was a pleasing co-incidence, and a huge laugh) It’s a Nothing’s Sacred moment which sets the tone for what’s coming up beyond The Gate. There’s a particularly British vein of wry humor underscoring much of the film that may escape American audiences. That the British Government would consider Scotland expendable. In a Westminster minute they would. ( The ‘15 and the ‘45…Culloden is not forgotten. ) That 30 years of quarantine has turned Glasgow into punk rock cannibals. Quietly hilarious. And so many riffs on past apocalyptic movie moments. Lots to enjoy, if you have a cine-literate funny bone.

There are complaints about action staging. Yet to those of us who have actually done this type of work, Marshall’s command of the discipline is self evident. Camera placement and editorial choices put the audience in the danger zone of the action, interspersed as necessary with reminders of geography, paid off with a lot of squirting and squishing. He understands screen dynamics, how to fluidly move your eyeballs from background to foreground, from left to right, then break rhythm for impact. And he understands blood and dismemberment. Not torture-porn, just how to be enjoyably excessive for the hard-R action audience of 2008.

There are critics who expected more depth. Perhaps depth makes a critic feel more important for expounding on it, but some films simply do not aspire to great depth, they just offer the fan base a fun ride. But DOOMSDAY does provide, albeit in broad strokes, a post-Katrina, post-Blair/Bush political undercurrent that resonates with its audience: profound distrust of government. Marshall’s excellent chiller The Descent had depth and character growth aplenty. The genre and the tale required it. This time he’s venturing into live action graphic novel territory. Did one dimensional story telling spoil 300? No. It’s horses for courses.

Critics have a job to do; to provide a contrary view when necessary to studio hype. Now anyone can call themselves a critic and be published in the increasingly flatulent blogosphere of movie geekdom. ( Me too, I guess) But when they take on the mantle of studio chief and pontificate about a director’s early promise being an illusion, that his career is now all downhill, they step outside their moral mandate, and become an envy-driven sniper. DOOMSDAY is the work of a fresh, quirky cine-literate mind, and a top notch professional achievement, all the more so for being the man’s third movie. I look forward to Marshall’s next one, and the next 20 that follow. (scroll on)