Doomsday

The Gist: The Reaper virus suddenly spreads throughout Scotland, killing hundreds of thousands. To stop the spread, the UK government evacuates as many uninfected people as possible and walls off the rest, assuming that time would naturally take care of culling the infected. Many years later, the virus resurfaces in London, and a tactical team is dispatched beyond the wall to verify whether a cure was ever found before everyone died off. The incursion will encounter many obstacles, though, as they come to discover that Scotland is all but deserted.

Doomsday is a post-apocalyptic movie that holds great promise but ultimately fails to deliver. There is a lot of action, good visual effects, the direction isn't bad, the acting is good, and the script has certainly a lot going for it.

In the end, I guess what's really to blame is the fact that the movie doesn't take itself seriously enough. I mean, the topic, a deadly virus with no cure, is pretty gloomy, and the movie isn't presented as a campy affair, and yet there's an undeniable cartoonish flair that dooms the whole thing.

The Bottom Line: Doomsday isn't awful nor boring, but it's also not consistently good entertainment, so I wouldn't heartily recommend it.

Grade: 6