Dwayne Johnson was far from an overnight sensation, even though he was named as the heir apparent to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone as Hollywood’s next action icon from the second he first opted to make the jump from the squared circle to the silver screen.
Of course, he’s firmly entrenched as the biggest and highest-paid star in the business in 2021, but his formative years as an actor weren’t without their struggles. The Scorpion King and The Rundown got things off to a solid start, but formula quickly set in via a series of middling mid budget star vehicles.
One of the most dismal was Doom, the 2005 video game adaptation that flopped at the box office after failing to recoup the $70 million budget, while it was battered by critics for good measure. These days, if you were told about an effects-heavy romp starring Johnson, Karl Urban and Rosamund Pike, you’d think that sounds interesting, but Doom kind of sucks.
In fact, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the only memorable thing about the entire 104-minute endeavor is the brief first-person sequence, the only shred of visual flair in the film. That being said, Doom has somehow managed to recapture the imagination on streaming, where FlixPatrol has it ranked as one of the ten most-watched titles on Netflix among customers in the United States.