Rhona Mitra in the Neil Marshall Film 'Doomsday'

So our fetching Rhona Mitra is starring in the $30 million Neil Marshall film, "Doomsday", which opened in theaters on March 14 in the US. Rhona fans love it while Marshall fans are split - many are disappointed that the story was so problematic. I loved it myself but then I'm also a fan of "Dog Soldiers" and "The Descent", Marshall's first two films that garnered cult followings. This one will too, no doubt.

Just a few observations of Doomsday ...

The sound sucked. It was my major annoyance with the film. Granted, I'm certain it was the theater I was in - it just wasn't LOUD enough. We were sitting in the back of the theater and kept looking at the speakers on the wall wondering why the only sound was from farts from the lil speakers nearer to the screen. What, no freaking surround sound?? Cheap ass theater owners charged $10 bucks to see a film, then ruin the experience for everyone by doing this kinda thing. As for the sound mix on the movie, it was overly done; there's no need for music in the background during every scene - let the actors deliver their lines for ferk's sake!

Second point to bitch about was the editing. It's not BAD editing, it's brilliant editing, it's that it's too much. I personally hate the new modern jump-cut, jump-cut, jump, jump, jump editing frenzy frenzy frenzy such as we saw in the Bourne movies. If two people are having a quiet conversation and the scene is eight lines long, what's wrong with a medium shot? Why does it need 40 cuts of close ups?? You spend $30 million on actors, sets, car smashes, and the lot - LET US SEE THE MOVIE. (Sorry, had to vent.)

Now to the good points...

It's a beautifully shot movie. Every freaking frame of cinematography and art direction are outstanding. Loved the sets too, and the costumes and makeup. But, Jesus, it would have been nice to see more of it without the frentic editing pace. Neil.

As for the script, well the medieval thing was "out there" but Marshall likes to do his own thing as we all know. The ending car chase was unnecessary - if Marshall wants to pay homage to George Miller's "Road Warrior", then leave it for another movie. "Doomsday" really is "Escape From New York" "Beowulf" and "Mad Max " mixed all together-- but that was entirely the point. (For a good review of "Doomsday" of a reviewer who got that feeling too, read mountainx.com who gave it 3 1/2 stars and calls it "the smartest dumb movie ever made.")

You can read Marshall's take on the music and the homage to other movies in his interview at ugo.com.

As for Rhona Mitra - don't you just love this chick? She is fit! According to Neil Marshall in an interview, she spent 11 weeks in the gym training for this film.

While you hate to see her long hair chopped off, it really works for this character so it's quickly forgotten, especially when she pops that cyber eye in and out - that's take your mind off her hair. Quite a few gratuitious ass shots, tough chick quips, father/daughter kind of moments with Bob Hoskins (love that guy!), plenty of gun action ... looking forward to seeing more of Rhona in the upcoming "Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans."

Honestly, I don't know why people keep talking up Kate Beckinsale about being a great kick ass heroine - Rhona is the shit and should be getting her share of these kinds of roles. (I would rank her along side the gorgeous zoombie slayer Milla Jovovich from "Resident Evil" - which by the way, scored only a 33 on the tomatometer at rottentomatoes.com. Milla recently announced her retirement from the 'Resident Evil' series. Apparently, three is enough.)

If you're a Rhona fan and you're considering seeing "Doomsday" but you're not sure ... you're KIDDING right? Rhona's in it. What more reason do you need? Go see it.

Posted: 19 March 08

Rhona Mitra Video Interview

Posted 4 April 08

What director Neil Marshall said about "Doomsday": "Well, just to clarify, Doomsday is NOT a horror film. Yes, it's dark. Yes, it's brutal and violent. (Hey, it's me !) And yes, it 's even a little scary at times. But a horror film it is not.

The mistake, and this seems to be based on contemporary cinema lore, which states that virus = zombies. With the likes of everything from 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, Resident Evil, and most recently in I Am Legend, it seems that any film dealing with a virus automatically has to have some variation of the living dead running around devouring people.

Well, our virus is back to basics. The real deal. It kills people. Pure and simple. As lethal and effective as a virus really is. Okay, so it rots you from the outside in, covering the victim with weeping soars and dripping pustules and liquefies the internal organs, but the end result is….you die. And you don't come back.

That said, Doomsday is not primarily a virus movie either. The 'Reaper' virus acts as a catalyst for the action, it's responsible for creating the world of the story, but doesn't drive the narrative."

Sean Pertwee on Making Doomsday: "My girlfriend Viper gets decapitated, which makes me rather cross, and I get to bite Rhona Mitra, which was quite tasty!"

"Doomsday" is set three decades after a lethal virus tore through a major country, leading to the country's walling off. When the virus, known as the Reaper, resurfaces in another country, an elite group is dispatched to the infected country to find a cure. There, they end up shut off from the rest of the world and must battle through a landscape that has become a waking nightmare. Mitra plays the leader of the elite group.

Here's the synopsis for Doomsday:

Great Britain, 2007. A deadly plague, known as the "Reaper Virus," has broken out, killing hundreds of thousands in its wake. In desperation, the British Government evacuates as many survivors as it can out of the infected area, and then builds a wall, preventing the remainder from escaping. Thirty years later, with the wall still up and the victims all but forgotten, the virus breaks out again. The Government decides to send a crack team of operatives, led by Major Eden Sinclair, into the hot zone to investigate the possibility of a cure.

www.doomsdayiscoming.com

Neil Marshall, who is the director of 'Doomsday' was interviewed in this month's issue of Total Film magazine. Here's the text:

Neil Marshall is a busy fella, but not so busy he can't deop Buzz a line from South Africa, where he's started filming his Apoco-drama Doomsday, his ballsy, bloody, ballistic follow up to The Descent. Marshall $20m actioner follows a crack military team as they pile into the infected zone - cut off bye a ruddy great wall - to search for a cure to the 'Reaper Virus'. Fail and it's bye-bye to the human race. Over to you Neil...

The end of the world is nigh! Well, Doomsday is anyway....'. here in Cape Town we're in the midst of pre-production. We started filming 9 February. Thw crew here is so enthusiastic. Nothing, it seems, is beyond their grasp and beleive me, i've thrown some weird *beep* their way!

We've got a fantastic cast, led by Rhona Mitra. She's been slogging her guts out for the past 10 weeks getting to peak physical fitness, as well as doing stunt training and fight choreography. A few of the Dog Soldiers gang are returning (Sean pertwee, Darren Morffit, Emma cleasby, Chris Robson and Les Simpson) along with two od the Descent girls (Myanna Buring and Nora jane Noone). To that, we've added the likes of Adrian Lester, Alexander Siddig and craig Conway. Paul Hyatt is back doing our reaper Vrus make-up FX and he's come up with some seriously icky stuff. Simon Bowles (my productiondesigner on Dog Soldiers and The Descent) is also back, along with Sam mcCurdy, my Director of Photography.

We're building several huge sets, including a secret underground government command centre ( for when the sh't hits the fan) and a 30ft high wall designed to keep the infected inside the hot zone or kill anyone trying to escape. We also have a bunch of mechanical geniuses contsructing a whole fleet of post-apocolyptic vehicles, including two massive APC's (each about the size of a double decker bus) and a Cannibal Marauder's 'Gimp Chariot'. Our main villain, the burtal Sol, drives an old Jaguar witht he skin of his victims stretched like hide over its body. The props guys have created an arsenal of flamethrowers, spears, chains and blades, all of which are likly to make contact with human flash at soem piint during the story. Nice!

'Doomsday' has Apocalypse Wow

Forget all quaint notions of plaid kilts, malt whisky and terriers: Scotland, in the futuristic action movie "Doomsday," is a walled-off quarantine zone.

A virus has wiped out 99.9% of the population. When a new outbreak ravages London, the government forms a team of commandos to seize survivors north of the border and find a cure. But the remaining Scots are hostile. Breaking out is impossible. Breaking in would be insane. Who'll be tough enough to lead the mission?

For "Doomsday" director-writer Neil Marshall, the answer is Maj. Eden Sinclair, played by Rhona Mitra. Sinclair's got guns, a posh accent - and a mechanical camera-eye. Most of all, she's a survivor: She was the last person over the wall.

"Eden's a child of the apocalypse," says Marshall. "Her mother sacrifices herself to get her daughter out, and she remembers that moment. Rhona was great at showing those feelings."

Suspense with swagger is nothing new for Marshall, who has scored big with horror and sci-fi fans. "Dog Soldiers" (2002), a hit on DVD, pitted British soldiers against a pack of werewolves. "The Descent" (2006), a cult fave about a cave-exploring trip gone terrifyingly wrong, grossed $57 million worldwide.

But "Doomsday," which opens Friday, seems poised to break Marshall out of the horror niche and into the top tier of action-movie directors.

The movie is a throwback to such action films as "Escape From New York," "The Road Warrior," "The Warriors" and "Zulu."

"Those movies are huge inspirations to me," he says. "In that era, the landscape shifted. The villains were everywhere."

Unlike a lot of today's thrillers, "Doomsday" stresses straight-up action over special effects as it follows strange paths into the unknown.

"The image that started me writing is sort of Terry Gilliam-esque," says Marshall of the director of "Brazil" and "Time Bandits."

"The idea of a band of futuristic soldiers in body armor squaring off against a medieval knight, the horse rearing up - what kind of story could that fit into that isn't a time-travel story?"

The budget for "Doomsday" was a mere $20 million - three times more than Marshall spent on his previous film. But, he says, the money was put to good use: "Action, weapons, costumes, armor, horses, crazy vehicles and hundreds of extras going wild. And more action."