For the love of the game

Sure, it's damning with faint praise, but Doom really is better than it should be, or even than it needs to be. After all, it's simply another violent, formulaic action picture, existing solely to wring some profit out of its mostly young-guy target audience, all of whom will be familiar with the video game it's based on.

Using a video game -- rather than, say, a novel -- as source material brings with it certain restrictions. Like the games themselves, a game-based film has to be loud and explosive and full of relentless action. If you don't get anything else but that, you get the kind of filmmaking that's not much different than the graphics of a video game, adding real people but subtracting the direct audience participation, which makes one of those pictures about as engaging as watching your nephew kill aliens on his PlayStation.

There've been plenty of those over the past couple of years. But give credit to cinematographer-turned-director Andrzej Bartkowiak (Romeo Must Die), veteran scripter Wesley Strick (True Believer, Wolf), and his co-writer David Callaham (a rookie screenwriter who, according to press materials, spends his spare time participating in "play-by-mail imaginary professional wrestling"). They've crafted a movie with some fairly engaging characters, a couple of plot surprises, and a few decent horror moments that, at their best, give off a distinct Alien vibe.