[yasr_overall_rating]
Two FBI agents trying to arrest several crooks find that they have an ancient Japanese artifact of enormous power. They then try to stop the crooks from delivering the stone to the criminal mastermind who is a rich businessman.
Every time I review a bad movie I always try to find some redeeming quality about it, whether it is the direction, the acting, cinematography, music, or something else entirely. As an independent filmmaker for over thirty years, I know, only too well, the blood, sweat, and tears it takes to make a film so I try to give kudos wherever I can. Unfortunately, “Doomsday Device” is that rare breed of film that simply cannot be salvaged, in any way, shape, or form. It is bad, from the inside out, from the bottom up, basically, from every possible angle that it can be viewed, it is bad. And what’s sad is that I interviewed the movie’s director, Christian Sesma, back in 2016 for a movie he made back then called “Vigilante Diaries” (you can listen to that interview here), a film I actually had some fun with so you can imagine my disappointment when I had to sit through this catastrophe.
What semblance of a story there is, revolves around a sacred, magical stone that gives the owner ultimate power, whether it be for good or evil but if it were for good, we wouldn’t have this movie so naturally, it is for evil purposes. We start off in Japan a long time ago where we see the stone being used by an evil overlord, causing catastrophic storms to wipe his enemies off the face of the earth. In the ensuing chaos, the stone disappears for hundreds of years and then reappears in present-day Japan. When Alexander Baird (Robert Carradine), a billionaire tech guru, finds out that the stone has been unearthed, he will do anything to get his hands on it but two FBI agents, Cole (Corin Nemec) and Mack (Mike Hatton), will do whatever it takes to prevent it from getting into the wrong hands.
The story is unoriginal and the acting, by pretty much all involved, is horrendous. Even Robert Carradine tries too hard to be evil and comes off looking constipated instead. Corin Nemec, as Cole, the lead FBI agent assigned the case, is the clichéd cop who doesn’t believe in hocus pocus, even when a witch, standing directly in front of him, holding the stone and causing tornadic storms and mayhem and destruction all around them, is more than enough to change the mind of even the most incredulous disbeliever. The CGI is atrocious and director Sesma borrows lines of dialogue from nearly every other action movie ever made, including “Aliens.” He did this with his previous feature, the aforementioned “Vigilante Diaries,” borrowing lines from Star Wars and Indiana Jones and while I put that down to him paying homage to writer/director Lawrence Kasdan, here, it is just lazy screenwriting at its worst. “Doomsday Device” is now available on DVD but hopefully, before you get to the store, the world will end. A much better alternative.
Now available on DVD from Lionsgate
