It’s a grim Reaper virus for Doomsday

May 12 2008 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

IF you were in Glasgow on April 3 this year, then we have some alarming news: you’re doomed!

The Scottish city was the epicentre of an outbreak of the deadly Reaper virus, which ravages the body.

The Labour government will respond swiftly and decisively by constructing a reinforced steel wall with sentry guns along Scotland’s border, separating an entire nation from the rest of the UK.

Sacrifice five million people to safeguard the world.

So begins the nightmarish scenario of Doomsday, a post-apocalyptic action romp with echoes of 28 Days Later and, worryingly, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

Writer-director Neil Marshall’s appetite for on-screen carnage, whetted in his first two films Dog Soldiers and The Descent, is sated here with dismemberment and decapitation on a much grander scale.

The film begins proper in London 2035.

Prime Minister John Hatcher (Alexander Siddig) calls Department of Domestic Security Chief Bill Nelson (Bob Hoskins) to an urgent meeting.

The Reaper virus has been detected in the capital. Unless a counteragent can be found within 48 hours, London will be ground zero for a global pandemic.

Thankfully, satellite photographs reveal people alive and well on the streets of Glasgow. Apparently there are survivors of the virus.

Nelson must assemble a crack team to cross the wall and find a cure, starting at the laboratory of scientist Dr Kane (Malcolm McDowell).

Doomsday begins promisingly but skitters into the realm of the ridiculous once the team encounter the barbaric survivors led by Sol (Craig Conway) and his punk-rocker heathens.

McDowell’s raspy voiceover, dictating Kane’s case notes, gives rise to more unintentional hilarity: “They’ve begun to feed off each other. It’s medieval out there!”