Nadia has used that term on a few occassions lately, spoken by The Rock on a recent episode of The Daily Show, in reference to Doom.

We watched the movie last night after having some dinner, and we both found it to be enjoyable. I’m not going to review the movie, but let me say a couple of things about it.

First, if you are expecting a faithful translation of the game, then don’t bother watching it. As we should all know by now, video game-based movies usually use a very basic concept from the game it is based on, and then takes all sorts of creative liberties to make thier movie. If you are expecting an entertaining sci-fi movie that is kinda like Doom, then go right ahead and watch it.

Second, video game-based movies can be easily divided into three categories: the good ones , the bad ones, and the horrible ones. The amount of creative liberties they take with the original concept usually determines how good the movie is. Consider the following:

The good ones:

• Resident Evil: Umbrella is still the bad guy, and the heroes are fighting zombies in Racoon City. Differences include the group being in The Hive instead of a mansion and a group Umbrella agents fighting for their lives instead of a S.T.A.R.S. team.
• Doom: Monsters on Mars are still the bad guy, and a nameless marine goes into UAC’s research facility to fight them. Differences include Sarge not being alone, and no demons.
• Mortal Kombat: Shang Tsung is still the bad guy, and Raiden calls on Earth’s mightest warriors to fight him. Differences include Sub-Zero being one of Shang Tsung’s goons instead of fighting against him.
• Tomb Raider: Not much to mess up here. Lara Croft is the hero, and she goes looking for some buried treasure while trying to keep some no-goodnicks away from it. There isn’t a whole lot of canon to betray here. They added a couple of extra characters to make it more interesting.

The bad ones:

• Street Fighter: Although they are still fighting, they aren’t doing it for a tournament on American docks, Russian nuclear power plants or Chinese markets. They are doing their fighting in Thailand for a UN-like organization under the command of Guile. It is correct that M. Bison is the villain of the story, but Dhalsim is an enslaved scientist, Blanka is really Charlie, and Balrog is a camera man?

The horrible ones:

• Super Mario Brothers: Mario, Luigi, and Princess Daisy (rather than Princess Peach) are still the heroes, and Bowser is still the villain. That’s basically where the similarities between the game and the movie ends. Oh yeah, and a pipe takes them to the Mushroom Kingdom, but for some reason it looks like MegaCity One. I was expecting Judge Dredd to ride up on his Lawmaster and dispense some street justice from the barrel of his Lawgiver. I am almost positive that Yoshi was in this movie somewhere, but I don’t remember for sure.

I have not seen Alone in the Dark or House of the Dead, so I have no opinion of them. Judging from the little I know of their plots, they would fall sqarely into the “Horrible” category.

I should probably qualify my categories. “Good” is 7-9 out of 10. “Bad” is 4-6 out of 10. “Horrible” is 1-3 out of 10. There is no category for 10 out of 10, since that video game-based movie doesn’t exist.

Kevin has already reviewed this movie. I generally agree with his points, but I’ll mention only point of contention: Doom is below Resident Evil: Apocalypse in quality. Not by much, but RE:A is the better movie.

One last thing. I put my Xbox 360 Gamer Card in the sidebar (the box with the panda that says Chill Penguin). When it comes out in 24 days, you’ll see what games I’m playing there. Not that you care, but I’ll show you anyway. Nad’s will be up once she makes the necessary updates to her LIVE account.