Doom is a movie that follows the basic premise of the Doom 3 videogame that came out last year. Karl Urbane (Lord of the Rings and The Bourne Supremacy) and The Rock (The Scorpion King and Be Cool) play two space marines who have been charged with going into a Mars-based laboratory that has broken off contact with Earth.

It isn't long before the group encounters evil alien-monsters bent on total destruction (in a true Doom-like manner). Gamers who have played the latest FPS title will recognize several of the monsters that have made their way onto the big screen. As an unusual twist (at least as far as most current, big-budget, sci-fi titles are concerned), instead of having CG monsters and splicing the real actors in with the computer-generated creations, the monster makers physically made giant suits for the stuntmen.

According to the Master Monster Makers featurette in the bonus section of this UMD, this was done to give the creatures a more real feel -- as if they weren't just some cartoon created in a computer. Oddly enough, to me this ended up giving the movie a sort of classic sci-fi view, making the game feel more like the classic Alien film rather than a post-millennium picture. Actually, now that I think about it, the movie seems to be a lot closer to the "haunted house in space" aspect of Alien than any other movie out there. In a way, this approach to the creature-creation is both good and bad. Good in that it gave the aliens a more solid feel, bad in that, if compared to some other current sci-fi releases, the special effects don't quite stack up.

At least this video-game to movie doesn't take a whole lot of liberties like other past ports have. All in all, the Doom movie brings in a lot of elements from the game. Everything from the dark techno-riddled environments to weapons like the BFG (the err... "Bio Force Gun") have made it into the movie.

I do remember the previews of this movie seemed to show off a first-person perspective in order to really tie it into the FPS game. I was expecting this to be a regular camera angle that would happen several times in the movie. Instead, this part of the film turned out to be a five or six minute segment towards the end of the film.

All in all, Doom is an okay action sci-fi film that does a fair job of moving the game to the big screen. As for picking up the UMD version... if you are going to find yourself on a plane or long car trip soon, then pick it up for the PSP, otherwise spend the extra few bucks on the DVD to get a few more features.