Last night there was not that much going on, Tivo showed nothing really worth watching, the baseball season is over, and Carmen and I needed something to do. What do you do when you don’t know what to do? Why, the movies of course! And yesterday’s movie was the movie version of the video game Doom starring The Rock, and directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak.

There is a long history of video games drawing plots from movies, and strangely enough, vice versa as well. After all, who could forget Super Mario Bros. or the science fiction classic Wing Commander? No one. No matter how hard they tried.

Doom joins them in the pantheon of strictly mediocre action movies loosely inspired by video games. A military rapid response team is sent through “The Ark” (a mysterious alien transporter that uses Jello® technology) to the Oluvai research center on Mars, where, somewhat predictably, scientists have been playing God, chromosome 24, mutation, disembowelment, you get the idea.

It’s not bad. It’s got a few clever bits, a few nods to the classic video game, but the original video game made a much bigger impression than this utterly forgettable movie. It didn’t leave me with the feeling that somebody looted $9 out of my wallet, maybe only $3.50, so see it in a matinee if you have to.

As a counterpoint: my wife mysteriously loved it, and thought it was the equal to the years earlier (and IMO, truly great) science fiction fare, Serenity. I can only shake my head and wonder if she’s taking too much cold medicine.

I give it a 6/10.