"Doomsday"

Rating:

BY JAN STUART | jan.stuart@newsday.com

March 17, 2008

Much as one might admire the British health care system as presented in the documentary "Sicko," even Michael Moore would have to admit they have a hard time over there coping with apocalyptic viruses.

A lot of good socialized medicine did for the virus-stricken Londoners in "28 Days Later" who turned into rabid killers before they could phone up the clinic for their free anti-zombie pharmaceuticals. And a lot of good it does for the Scots left high and dry in Glasgow when a ruthless virus in "Doomsday" reduces them to writhing repositories of boils and slime.

Just to shake things up a little, I guess, the creators of the laughably over-the-top "Doomsday" thought it might be fun to turn the survivors of a deadly epidemic, rather than its victims, into maniacal murderers.

If writer/director Neil Marshall proves prescient, then a giant wall will be built around a large chunk of the northern U.K. next month to contain those survivors. Years hence, it will be discovered that hundreds have survived within the quarantine region, giving hope of a possible cure.

The stalwart and ravishing Maj. Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) is recruited to lead a military team into the quarantine sector and find the doctor who possesses that cure. They eventually track him down (a dastardly Malcolm McDowell), but not before most of Sinclair's crew have met terrible deaths at the hands of virus survivors, who have created a medieval mini-empire where cannibalism and Goth fashion reign supreme.

The center-ring highlight in this carnival of decapitations, torture and brain-splatterings is a public execution where everyone dances the cancan before a captive man is lowered into a flaming oven marked "rare/medium/krispy," after which his charred body is served to the ecstatic mob.

"Doomsday" also stars Bob Hoskins as Sinclair's government ally and the estimable Adrian Lester in the role of the mission member's tough but ultimately disposable black man.

DOOMSDAY (R). Natural selection means survival of the hottest in a flamboyantly silly post-apocalyptic thriller with a heavy debt to "The Road Warrior." Rhona Mitra is a glam fighting gal who takes on men with clubs and women with spikes. 1:45 (strong bloody violence, language and some sexual content and nudity). At area theaters.