Matt – Doom
Disclaimer: Violence is bad and I don’t condone it. Innocent lives are lost every day due to some horrible atrocity, and that isn’t something to be taken lightly. If the world were a peaceful place where everyone held hands and and just partied together 24/7, we’d all be better for it.
But since we’re talking about violent sprees in fictional movies, and I’m a rational human being who can separate fantasy from reality, blatant acts of uber-violence don’t get much better than when Karl Urban goes all First Person Shooter mode in Doom. Yes, I proudly own Doom and display it in my DVD collection, especially since it has a sweet Steelbook collectors case. Go ahead, judge me.
Anyways, but why pick that scene? Um, because it’s a little slice of horror/sci-fi shoot em’ up heaven that literally puts us in the nostalgic world of the video game Doom, showing Urban blasting through baddies and putting us face to face with some of Doom’s demons in real life. Capturing the essence of the game, the scene runs through everything from Urban ripping head shots through his scope to blowing a more vicious baddy up with a mine, all culminating with Urban’s hand-to-hand battle with a now grotesque monster form of Pinky – eventually incorporating a chainsaw. It’s one thing to play through scenes like that seeing video game graphics, but it’s a completely different beast watching the magic of Hollywood bring one of the most iconic video game franchises to life.
You can argue about the total film’s quality all you wan’t, I know Doom in it’s entirety is an absolute guilty pleasure, but the FPS scene stands out for gratuitous carnage and gleeful squeals. If you want to appreciate the scene even more though, check out the special features on the Blu-Ray to see how they put this whole ordeal together (to the other five people out there who own it). Every little detail was considered, all the way down to gun placement. For example, a normal FPS would have the gun taking up more space on the screen, but for the purposes of cinema and showing as much content as possible, they were able to only bring the gun up fully when necessary, letting Urban’s character hold it downward a majority of the time. Every little detail was considered. Oh, and don’t even get me started on how production was able to achieve the free-flowing one-shot feel of the whole scene, orchestrating choreography to perfection, while in actuality they had to make a few cuts. Bravo.
You can rain on my Doom parade all you want, but nothing will ever squash my love for this scene. For one, brief moment in time, I get to pretend I’m Karl Urban, blasting evil hell-spawns away in a blaze of violent glory. Sure, I could just play the video game I guess, but this is even LESS work, if that was physically possible?
Sarge: “I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO DIE!”
The arguments have been made! Now it’s your turn, head to the comments section and weigh-in on which literary characters you’d love to see Leo play!
And if you liked this Throwdown, maybe you’d like to check out one of our past arguments, such as which literary characters we’d love to see Leonardo DiCaprio play?
