doom-movieComing out on Blu-Ray this week is the special edition of Doom, a movie that proves that sometimes, all you need is a name.

Only vaguely resembling the video game, Doom plants us squarely on Mars, along with a half-squad of  Space Marines who’ve been sent to investigate recent disturbances at the Union Aerospace Corporation’s facility there.  What’s causing the disturbances?  Why, what else but a series of genetically engineered horrors!

For those of you who thought that demons were actually causing the problems on Mars in the Doom universe, well, you’re not alone.  This is only one of several  discrepancies between the original game and the movie.

This isn’t to say, of course, that Doom isn’t a fun and fairly exciting little piece of fluff.  There’s lots of gunplay and explosions and big creepy nasties roaming around and getting blasted.  There’s a sequence toward the end that’s almost exactly like the video game, in a fairly clever homage.  But no one’s ever going to mistake this for an Oscar candidate, or anything more than a mediocre action film featuring nothing less than The Rock.  The Rock is very familiar with cheesy action film.

And can we ever smell what The Rock is cooking…no pancakes this time, but rather a half-baked warmed-over leftover of a movie.

Popularity: unranked [?]

I was delighted to hear Ashley Judd will star in Tooth Fairy with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Tooth Fairy begins filming in Vancouver this October with  Michael Lembeck (The Santa Clause 2, 3) directing.

It’s about tale of a minor league hockey player nicknamed Tooth Fairy (Johnson) who is recrutited to try to save the Tooth Fairy kingdom. 

Judd stars as his girlfriend, a single mother of two kids.

 

Popularity: 1% [?]

Sony Gets Planet 51

Planet51 In more animated news, Sony Picture Worldwide has picked up US distribution rights to the $50 million CG-animated film Planet 51.

The film follows an Earth astronaut (Dwayne Johnson) who lands on Planet 51, thinking that he’s the first human to set foot on the planet. He discovers, much to his surprise, "little green people" living in a white picket-fence community reminiscent of 1950s America.

Jessica Biel, Gary Oldman, Justin Long and Sean William Scott also co-star. It is set for release on November 20, 2009.

Popularity: 1% [?]

johnsond1.jpgThe Tooth Fairy will be played by Dwayne Johnson a comedy that’s coming together for an August start.

Michael Lembeck, who directed the second and third installments of The Santa Clause, is tagged to direct. Johnson will play an ordinary man (hard to believe he’s ordinary) who’s recruited to try to save the tooth fairy kingdom.

He’s starring in Disney’s Witch Mountain, and he will be on the big screen this summer opposite Steve Carell in the Warner Bros. comedy Get Smart.

Popularity: 1% [?]