tek's rating:

Doomsday (R / unrated)
Dread Central (Blu-ray/DVD); IMDb; Rotten Tomatoes; TV Tropes; Universal; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; iTunes; Movies Anywhere; Peacock; Vudu; YouTube

So, this came out in 2008, but I didn't watch it til 2012. (Actually, on December 20, the night before the world was supposed to end. Though my viewing bled into December 21, and the world was still here.) Um... it struck me as kind of a cross between Escape From New York and 28 Days Later. Basically, in 2008 there was this "Reaper" plague in Scotland, and Britain walled Scotland off, so no one could get in or out. Although there was this woman who handed off her young daughter to soldiers who were taking off in a helicopter... I have no idea how the woman reached the helicopter nor why the soldiers would agree to take the kid out of a quarantine zone, but whatevs.

Flash forward to 2035. The little girl is now all grown up, and a soldier herself. Her name is Major Eden Sinclair. The Reaper virus breaks out again, so the government sends her and a team into Scotland to look for a doctor there named Kane, who may have found a cure. They end up getting captured by this guy named Sol, who is the leader of a group of crazy punk cannibals or whatever. That was actually pretty cool. Most of Sinclair's team gets killed, but of course Sinclair herself survives, along with fellow soldier Sergeant Norton and a doctor named Stirling. Joining them is a woman named Cally, a prisoner of Sol, who promises to lead them to Kane. It turns out Sol and Cally are both Kane's children. Unfortunately, Kane is at war with Sol, and for some reason had also turned against Cally. But she managed to get them to Kane's stronghold... where they were once again taken prisoner. Of course, they'll escape again, and again be pursued by Sol and his people.

Um... I don't really know what else to say about the plot. It's all rather badass, and some bits are fairly amusing (I particularly liked Sol's use of music- Fine Young Cannibals' "Good Thing" and Jacques Offenbach's "Galop Infernal"; and the fact that Kane's castle was being used as in medieval days, but had signs left over from being used as a tourist attraction, before the plague). And I guess I should mention that there's a fair amount of gore in the movie. (Incidentally, the DVD has both the R-rated theatrical version and an unrated version; I watched the latter, and I'm not sure exactly how different it is from the R version.) Oh yeah, Sol has a lover or something who is apparently called Viper, but I never actually heard that name in the movie, I just read it online. And I feel like I must have seen previews a few years ago that made me think she'd be a much more important character than she actually was. And um... there were a few familiar actors, including Malcolm McDowell as Kane, Bob Hoskins as Sinclair's boss, and Alexander Siddig as the Prime Minister. Anyway, it was a reasonably fun movie, though not one I expect to ever watch again.


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