The games people slay: "Doom"

Yeah, not too proud of myself here. What can I say? I saw this "movie" was on at 11 p.m. one night and figured, "When else am I going to watch such dreck?" The answer, of course, should have been never-ever-ever.

Correspondingly -- a big word, I know -- we'll waste little time recapping the video-game-turned-feature-film. "Doom" gives us a team of soldiers dispatched to see what's up on a Martian research outpost, where one of the soldiers' sisters also happens to be a scientist. Seems some brainiacs have gone missing, and spooky things are afoot.

Leading the team is Sarge, played by The Rock, who showed a little promise in "The Rundown" and has since mostly crapped the bed. The other soldier of note is played by Karl Urban. Why of note? Two reasons: (1) He's the guy with the sister, played by the icy-yet-juicy Rosamund Pike. (2) Late in the movie he's the guy behind the "shooter-cam," a point-of-view technique that allows us to feel like we are shooting bad guys. Ooooh, cool!

I probably should confess -- or boast, your call -- that I've never been a video gamer. The last time I spent hours and days playing a game was Super Marios Brothers 2 on Nintendo -- I think whatever the second generation was called. As an adult, however, I've eschewed the xBox, passed on the PlayStation, waved off the Wii. I don't know ... just never cared for it. Fine if it's your thing, but it doesn't twist my nipples.

As a result, "Doom" probably was never for me, and the general idiocy of the proceedings doesn't help. Pretty much throughout the whole movie I was thinking of "Alien," "Aliens" and other, far superior "monsters picking off people one by one" flicks. On the plus side, The Rock fortunately passed on stripping down to his bikini briefs like Ripley before her final battle. Like I needed anything else to leave a bad taste in my mouth.