csua.org/u/dt8 -> rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051020/REVIEWS/51012003/1023
Then we fly closer to Mars until we see surface d etails and finally the Olduvai Research Station, helpfully described on the movie's Web site as "a remote scientific facility on Mars" ... where , if you give it but a moment's thought, all of the scientific facilitie s are remote.
Total Recall" (1990), but blast it all, at least in t hose movies, you get to see Mars. I'm a science fiction fan from way bac k I go to Mars, I expect to see it. Watching "Doom" is like visiting Ve gas and never leaving your hotel room. No, I haven't pla yed it, and I never will, but I know how it feels not to play it, becaus e I've seen the movie. "Doom" is like some kid came over and is using yo ur computer and won't let you play. The movie involves a group of Marines named the Rapid Response Tactical S quad, which if they would only take the slightest trouble could be renam ed the Rapid Action Tactical Squad, which would acronym into RATS. In the middle of an American desert has been discovered a p ortal to an ancient city on Mars. The Olduvai facility has been establis hed to study it, and now there is a Breech of Level 5 Security, and the RRTS are sent to Mars through the portal to take care of business.
Ben Dan iels), Duke (Razaaq Adoti), Portman (Richard Brake) and The Kid (Al Weav er). On Mars, we see terrified humans running from an unseen threat. Carma ck (Robert Russell) closes an automatic steel door on a young woman whos e arm is onscreen longer than she is, if you get my drift, and then he s pends a lot of time huddled in the corner vibrating and whimpering. We m eet Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike), sister of Reaper (a k a John Grimm). She is an anthropologist at the station, and has reconstructed a comple te skeleton of a humanoid Martian woman huddled protectively over her ch ild. If you know your anthropology, you gotta say those are bones that h ave survived a lot of geological activity. Grimm speculates, but super-human: They bio-engineered a 24th chromosome. The ext ra chromosome made them super smart, super strong, super fast, and super quick to heal. But it turned some of them into monsters, which is presu mably why the others built the portal to earth, where - what? Is that the kind of Intellige nt Design we want our kids studying? Grimm says at another point, "Ten percent of the human genome has not yet been mapped. The Human Genome Project was completed in 2003, somethi ng you would think a scientist like Dr. I am reminded of the astronauts in "Stealth" reminding each other what a prime number is. They are big mothers and must have awesome daily caloric requirements. How they survive, how they breathe e arth atmosphere in the station and what, as carnivores, they eat and dri nk -- I think we can all agree these are questions deserving serious sci entific study. Meanwhile, their pastime is chasing humans, grabbing them, smashing them, eviscerating and disemboweling them, pulling them through grates, and i n general doing anything that can take place obscurely in shadows and no t require a lot of special effects. Toward the end of the movie, there is a lengthy point-of-view shot lookin g forward over the barrel of a large weapon as it tracks the corridors o f the research station. Monsters jump out from behind things and are bla sted to death, in a sequence that abandons all attempts at character and dialogue and uncannily resembles a video game. Later, when the names of the actors appear on the screen, they are also blasted into little piec es.
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