It wears its heart on its sleeve - it rips off (it doesn’t even make the pretence of homaging) EFNY and Mad Max well: there’s shot-for-shot theft from Carpenter - the crane shot rising behind the soldier on the wall as he looks out upon the funeral pyres is exactly the same as the shot in EFNY; the punks coming through the same doorway over and over again only to be shot has Assault on Precinct 13 written all over it; Sinclair’s constant attempts to blag fags off people is even plucked out of the end of Escape From LA and is obviously intended to be the Plisskenesque “I thought you were dead/would be taller” catchphrase of the film. Obviously, Rhona Mitra doesn’t have a fraction of the charisma of Kurt Russell in his most famous role; that said, she does all the physical stuff well, but what the film most obviously lacks is that kind of memorable, sassy protagonist.

I had no problem with the thudding dialogue myself - it’s supposed to be kinda stupid and unrealistic in the same way as Mel Ferrer barking out pseudo-science militarisms in Nightmare City is.

I also thought every penny of the budget was onscreen, which you can’t say a lot (in a good way) these days.

Far from perfect, but good fun I thought. Some horrible editing in the fight scenes, though.

Unfortunately, even those who saw the likes of Escape From New York, Mad Max 2, Excalibur etc. on their original outings (as I did) aren’t going to be wildly impressed either, since Doomsday merely provided constant reminders of how much better they were.

Part of the problem is encapsulated by his nudge-nudge naming of two minor characters after John Carpenter and George Miller. This is itself a homage to Escape From New York, which features characters named Romero and Cronenberg - but the crucial difference is that Carpenter wasn’t ripping them off at the same time!

To be fair, Doomsday is fun in a brain-dead kind of way, but it’s a major disappointment after the promise of Marshall’s first two features.