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— by Larry Carroll
From the slow-motion death ballets perfected by director Sam Peckinpah, to the both-hands-blazing carnage of John Woo, to the view-it-from-every-angle "bullet time" gimmickry in "The Matrix," every decade or so movie audiences experience a paradigm shift in action movies literally right before their eyes.
This time around, the world has Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to thank.
"I made sure that they had that first-person shooter in there," the superstar asserted of an adrenaline-pumping, eye-popping sequence in "Doom" that innovatively turns the viewer into a character from the movie. "[I knew] if they were able to capture that in a movie, then you'd really do something special. It was written in [the script], and I was like, well, that's really ambitious. [But then I] actually saw the first-person shooter and how it was going to play out onscreen. They did it, and I loved it. It's awesome."
For those unfamiliar with the equally innovative '90s game that shares its name and concept with the movie, the sequence is much more than awesome — it's appropriate. Fans of the game will see on the screen the familiar image of a hand holding an enormous gun, from the gun-holder's perspective, as the protagonist/viewer peers around corners. Hideous monsters miscalculate the timing and methodology of their attacks and, for their trouble, have their brains and various other viscera blown all over the monitor — or, now, the movie screen.
"The first time I played 'Doom' was way back in the day, when it first came out," recalled the burly wrestler-turned-thespian, cast as the tough-talking lead, Sarge, in the film. "When [the game] first came out, everyone was like, 'Damn, you've got to play "Doom," it's amazing, it just kicks ass.' So I played it. I realized at that point that when you play as a first-person shooter, for me — and maybe I had an upset tummy or something — I was like, 'This is making me nauseous.' "
Much like the Rock's use of the phrase "upset tummy," his movie is an unexpected and even somewhat unsettling experience. Set in the near future, it tells the grim tale of a scientific research station on Mars, where experiments have uncovered a hellacious mix of flesh-eating monsters, fast-spreading viral infections and more severed body parts than one might stumble over on a tour of Rob Zombie's rumpus room. When a group of "space Marines," including Sarge, a twisted warrior named Goat (Ben Daniels) and shell-shocked veteran John Grimm (Karl Urban) set out on an interplanetary reconnaissance trip accompanied by more big men and still bigger guns, no wall goes unsplattered.
Although Rock might look as though he spends more time lifting dumbbells than manipulating PlayStation controllers, the star said that he implored the filmmakers to stay true to the game, because he's a gamer himself.
"What I really like to do at the gym," he laughed, trying to build up some geek cred, "is get into the shower, get myself all wet and then come back out to the gym to make it look like I sweated a lot. That's the secret.
"I'm a big gamer, man," he continued. "I've always been a big gamer, especially in school, at the University of Miami. That's all we used to do. And even now, I just got the new 'Madden' and I been whuppin' everybody's ass with that. I'm bad."
Proudly, he then revealed that "Madden" isn't the only video game-related possession he's been showing off to visitors.
"I've got the BFG sitting at home in Miami," Rock said of the enormous gun — synonymous with the "Doom" franchise — that his character wields in the film. "It's just huge. Blow out the side of a wall, just boom! Awesome! And if you like firing things and blowing sh-- up, like I do, then you're like a kid in a candy store."
For a man with a tendency for upset tummies, the Rock sure does get excited over the opportunity to create massive carnage. Asked about the film's full-throttle tone, for instance, he sums up his mindset thusly: "If people are gonna get blown away, and if monsters are gonna get blown away, well, we're gonna blow 'em away! And it's not gonna be PG-13. It's gonna be a hard R. Damn near X! We're gonna blow their heads off!"
It's a credo that made the game controversial a decade ago, and that raises a big-picture question about a film that most casual moviegoers have likely written off as just another thrill-ride popcorn flick: Is the first-person sequence an initial step toward a future where movies and video games are indecipherable from one another?
"I think that will happen one day, for sure, absolutely," the Rock said. "With technology the way it is, how it continues to advance and how sophisticated it is, [someday] you're gonna pay 50 bucks to go in there, you have your joystick and you could manipulate how the movie ends — what happens to the guy and all the characters. That's gonna be awesome."
As he moves on to shooting both the movie and the third video game based on "Spy Hunter," the Rock appears to be establishing a beachhead for the coming revolution. And if the first-person angle does take off, he jokes that someday theatergoers may look through a character's eyes and see old-school barrels, neon-red ladders and a damsel in distress.
" 'Donkey Kong,' man, let's do that," he said of his dream video-game adaptation.
While the mental image of the Rock in blue overalls, white gloves and a bushy moustache might be enough to give us all a tummy ache, not to worry: The man, after all, likes being the bad guy.
"Who wants to be Mario?" he bellowed between laughs. "I just want to throw the barrels."
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