We waited 6 years for this?
Doomsday Book is a 3 part Korean anthology film about the future of mankind. Its 3 separate story lines are basically broken down as follows: 1. Zombie Apocalypse, 2. Robot Enlightenment, and 3. Alien/Asteroid destruction. Each of the stories is independent from one another and all are acted, written, and directed by various teams.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
While not terrible, this movie does have some problems, and it seems strangely out dated (despite its futuristic themes). This film debuted earlier this year (2012), and therein lies the bulk of its problems; this production originally began back in 2006, but funding problems and other delays hampered its release and it was shelved for quite a while. As a result, some stories were wrapped up years ago, one never got made, another was added on post haste to finally get the film out the door, etc...The end result is an uneven amalgam of flavors and styles and eras that doesn't quite come together as a whole as was hoped for.
Story 1. "Brave New World" (i.e. "the Zombie" story). Easily my least favorite of the 3 works, and the one that suffers the most from the production delays. This story has 2006 written all over it, and revolves around the world's population de-evolving into zombie like creatures as a result of a virus born of tainted meat processing procedures. This would have been right proper back in '06, but, how many stories about contaminated mass food production, end of world viruses, etc, have been made since then?... And, we've got zombies! Sorry, but it's almost 2013 now, so enough with the freakin zombies already unless you have a more original idea to implement them! This story is ultimately not worth investing in (primarily because it was so overdone by the time it was released). There's also no zombie "love story" angle as suggested that I can recall, unless there is some extended version I haven't seen. Basically, guy goes on a date, guy runs into date later on during the wash, and, everybody is now a zombie or will soon become one!
Summary: Somewhat OK (I guess)!
Story 2. "Creation of Heaven" (i.e. the "Robot with a soul" story). Probably the best of the 3 stories, and easily the most philosophical & cerebral. Fairly interesting and well done story overall. It's basically your human created machine gains intelligence, sentience, thought, free will, etc. Then, various humans with differing opinions and motives on the subject must decide what to do with it. This story would perhaps have been better suited to be a full feature movie on its own. It does work pretty well as a short, but I could easily see it being successfully expanded into a longer production (similar to what was done with the "Dumplings" portion of the "3 Extremes" anthology).
Summary: Not bad at all!
Story 3. "Happy Birthday" (i.e. the "We need to tack on another 30-40 minute tale 6 years later to finally release this film" story). I like the somewhat odd premise of this segment, but unfortunately, it just doesn't work that well overall. This is the story that has the young girl trying to replace her dad's missing 8-ball via the internet. The internet is a magical place indeed, but I think we're still a long way away from alien races fulfilling Amazon.com orders through space and time via giant asteroids. This episode felt a bit rushed, and, I think would have been far better served if it played up the comedic/surreal aspect of the plot (which it reluctantly seemed to not want to fully embrace).
Summary: Ultimately disappointing!
Bottom Line: Overall, I was not impressed! A bit of a missed opportunity that's "OK" to watch, but I recommend you don't set your hopes too high going in if you're going to check it out. I'm not going to destroy it, because it ain't terrible. Occasionally though, delays/timing/funding get in the way of the best laid plans; here's Exhibit A in regards! That's just the way it goes sometimes!
6 out of 10 stars overall!
