Doomsday is a 2008 science fiction action film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film takes place in the future in Scotland, which has been quarantined because of a deadly virus. When the virus is found in London, political leaders send a team led by Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) to Scotland to find a possible cure. Sinclair's team runs into two types of survivors: marauders and survivors styling themselves after medieval knights. Doomsday was conceived by Marshall based on the idea of futuristic soldiers facing medieval knights. In producing the film, he drew inspiration from various movies, including Mad Max, Escape from New York (1981) and 28 Days Later (2002).
Marshall had a budget three times the size of his previous two films, Dog Soldiers (2002) and The Descent (2005), and the director filmed the larger-scale Doomsday in Scotland and South Africa. The film was released in the United States and Canada on 14 March 2008 and in the United Kingdom on 9 May 2008. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the casting, pacing, narrative, and homage to previous films, but criticized the plot holes, character development, confusing editing, and excessive gore. The film grossed $22 million worldwide, making it a box office bomb.
Plot In 2008, the Reaper Virus ravages Scotland. Unable to contain the outbreak or cure the infected, the UK government erects a 30-foot wall isolating Scotland. The quarantine succeeds, but the extreme method turns the country into a pariah state.
In 2035, authorities discover several people in London infected with Reaper. Satellite imagery spots survivors in Scotland, indicating the existence of a cure or immunity. To prevent an outbreak, Prime Minister John Hatcher orders Captain Nelson to send a team to Scotland to investigate, pointing at famed medical researcher Dr. Kane as a likely creator of the cure.
Nelson assembles a team led by Major Eden Sinclair, who hails from Scotland and was separated from her mother during the evacuation. Other team members include Sergeant Norton, Sinclair's deputy; virologists Dr. Stirling and Dr. Talbot; and several DDS troopers.
The team crosses the wall to Glasgow. While searching a hospital for survivors, they are ambushed by a group of marauders. Norton and Stirling escape, but the team suffers heavy casualties. Sinclair and Talbot are captured by a gang of brutal cannibals led by the power-hungry Sol, who plans to use Sinclair as leverage to cross the wall and invade England. Talbot is roasted and eaten. With the help of Cally, another prisoner, Sinclair escapes and kills Viper, Sol's second-in-command. She finds Norton and Stirling, and they flee on a train. Cally reveals that she and Sol are Kane's children. She also explains that Sol overthrew the previous government with his army of insurgents and refuted Kane's rule.
In London, the Reaper epidemic continues to spread. As he is being evacuated from the city, Hatcher is infected by an attempted assassin. Michael Canaris, Hatcher's Machiavellian advisor, uses it as an excuse to quarantine Hatcher and take command as the de facto Prime Minister. Hatcher commits suicide rather than succumb to the virus.
After leaving the train, Sinclair's group is captured by soldiers armed with archaic weapons and armor. They are taken to a castle and imprisoned by Kane, who reveals that there is no cure, but that people have developed an immunity to the Reaper Virus. After being left behind during the Scottish quarantine and losing his wife, Kane became a twisted and sadistic feudal lord who blamed science for the downfall of civilization. He sentences Sinclair, Cally, Norton, and Stirling to death. Sinclair is pitted against Telamon, Kane's executioner, in a duel. Sinclair wins, killing Telamon before escaping with the others.
They find an underground facility in the forest that contains various equipment and vehicles, including an intact Bentley. Before they can escape, Kane's knights arrive and kill Norton. Sinclair, Cally, and Stirling escape the facility but are soon intercepted by Sol and his gang. After a high-speed chase, Sol and many of his men are killed.
Sinclair calls Canaris and tells him she has the cure. Canaris arrives via helicopter, and Sinclair bargains with him to take Cally and Stirling back to London, where Stirling can use samples of Cally's blood to manufacture a vaccine. Canaris admits to Sinclair that he plans to hold back any cure until Reaper successfully eliminates much of the underclass in the form of social cleansing. Unbeknownst to Canaris, Sinclair secretly records the conversation using her bionic eye.
Instead of returning to London, Sinclair goes to Glasgow to search for her mother, but discovers she died during the quarantine. Nelson arrives, and Sinclair gives him the recording of Canaris' admission. Canaris is exposed on television, upon which he fearfully realizes that his career has ended and conviction is inevitable. Sinclair remains in Scotland and uses Sol's severed head as a means to assume leadership over his band of marauders.
Cast
Rhona Mitra as Eden Sinclair, a Major of the Department of Domestic Security, was selected to lead a team to find a cure. The heroine was inspired by the character Snake Plissken. Mitra worked out and fight trained for eleven weeks for the film. Marshall described Mitra's character as a soldier who has been rendered cold from her military indoctrination and her journey to find the cure for the virus is one of redemption. The character was originally written to have "funny" lines, but the director scaled back on the humor to depict Sinclair as more "hardcore". Bob Hoskins as Bill Nelson, Eden Sinclair's boss. Marshall sought to have Hoskins emulate his "bulldog" role from the 1980 film The Long Good Friday. David O'Hara as Michael Canaris, a corrupt senior official within the British government whose position is never stated, who acts as Hatcher's puppeteer. Canaris was depicted to have a fascist background, speaking lines that paralleled Adolf Hitler's mindset of cleansing. Malcolm McDowell as Marcus Kane, a former scientist who now lives as a feudal lord in an abandoned castle, having medieval army under his command and controlling parts of the country. McDowell described his character as a King Lear. According to Marshall, Kane is based on Kurtz from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The director originally sought to bring Sean Connery out of retirement to play Kane but was unsuccessful. McDowell is the maternal-uncle of Alexander Siddig. Alexander Siddig as Prime Minister John Hatcher. Marshall originally wrote Hatcher as a sympathetic character misguided by Canaris, but revised the character to be more like Canaris in embracing political manipulation. Siddig is the maternal-nephew of Malcolm McDowell. Adrian Lester as Sergeant Norton, a member of Sinclair's team Craig Conway as Sol, Kane's son and the leader of the marauders. He has a biohazard sign tattooed on his back and a large scar across his chest. Even though he is Kane's son, he distanced himself from him and formed his own army. He was a young child in the original 2008 quarantine.
In addition, Lee-Anne Liebenberg portrays Viper, the wild woman who is Sol's second-in-command, while Hennie Bosman portrays Telamon (The Gladiator). Also cast as part of Eden Sinclair's team were Chris Robson as Miller, and Leslie Simpson as Carpenter. The names Miller and Carpenter were nods to directors George Miller and John Carpenter, whose films influenced Marshall's Doomsday. Sean Pertwee and Darren Morfitt portrayed the team's medical scientists, Dr Talbot and Dr Stirling, respectively. MyAnna Buring portrayed Kane's daughter Cally.Listed in the film's credits. Emma Cleasby played Eden's mother at the start of the film.
Miss Scotland and Miss United Kingdom, Nieve Jennings was an extra in the movie.
Production
Conception Director Neil Marshall lived near the ruins of Hadrian's Wall, a Roman fortification built to defend England against Scotland's tribes. The director fantasised about what conditions would cause the Wall to be rebuilt and imagined a lethal virus would work. Marshall had also visualised a mixture of medieval and futuristic elements: "I had this vision of these futuristic soldiers with high-tech weaponry and body armour and helmets—clearly from the future—facing a medieval knight on horseback." The director favoured the English/Scottish border as the location for a rebuilt wall, finding the location more plausible than a lengthy boundary between the United States and Canada. Additionally, Scotland is the home to multiple castles, which fit Marshall's medieval aspect.
The lethal virus in Doomsday differs from contemporary films like 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later by being an authentic plague that actually devastates the population, instead of infecting people so they become aggressive cannibals or zombies. Marshall intended the virus as the backdrop to the story, having survivors scavenge for themselves and set up a primitive society. The director drew from tribal history around the world to design the society. Though the survivors are depicted as brutal, Marshall sought to have "shades of gray" by characterising some people in England as selfishly manipulative.
The director intended Doomsday as a tribute to post-apocalyptic films from the 1970s and 1980s, explaining, "Right from the start, I wanted my film to be an homage to these sorts of movies, and deliberately so. I wanted to make a movie for a new generation of audience that hadn't seen those movies in the cinema—hadn't seen them at all maybe—and to give them the same thrill that I got from watching them. But kind of contemporise it, pump up the action and the blood and guts." Cinematic influences on Doomsday include:
Mad Max (1979), Mad Max 2 (1981), and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985): Marshall drew inspiration from the punk style of the films and also shaped Rhona Mitra's character after Max Rockatansky as a police officer with a troubled history. Escape from New York (1981): The director drew from the concepts of gang warfare and the experience of being walled-in. Rhona Mitra's character has an eye patch like Snake Plissken, though the director sought to create a plot point for the eye of Mitra's character to reinforce its inclusion. Excalibur (1981): Marshall enjoyed John Boorman's artistry in the film and sought to include its medieval aspects in Doomsday. The Warriors (1979): The director the films of Walter Hill, including the "visual style of the gang warfare" in The Warriors. During the scene where Sol addresses the crowd in Glasgow, a Baseball Furies gang member can be seen in the crowd. No Blade of Grass (1970): Marshall perceived the film as a predecessor to 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, though he sought to make Doomsday less straight-faced. The Omega Man (1971): The director was inspired by the "empty city" notion of the film and drew upon its dark and gritty nature. A Boy and His Dog (1975): Marshall created a homage to the 1974 film's ending by including a scene of a human being cooked. Waterworld (1995): The director was inspired by the gritty atmosphere and how people scavenge to survive and adapt in their new world. Gladiator (2000): As with the Russell Crowe character in the Ridley Scott film, Marshall sought to put Mitra's character through a trial by combat. Children of Men (2006): With this film coming out during the development of Doomsday, the director realised the similarity of the premises and sought to make his film "more bloody and more fun".