Before seeing « The Doom Generation », I had already seen « Nowhere », which I absolutely hated. « The Doom Generation », however, makes all the same mistakes made in « Nowhere » (which I personally consider a cinematic mistake itself, so guess what « The Doom Generation » is).
Gregg Araki, who clearly misunderstood the surreal movement, tries to shock us with (Spoilers warning) a pathetic girl having sex with two different guys (and cheating on her boyfriend), having sex with two different guys at the same time, a Chinese guy being decapitated by a shotgun blast, a stupid News program showing butchered children, a guy being dismembered, a guy being raped and having his penis cut off by ridiculous Neo-nazis.wow! What a program! It is so HORRIBLE.I had to slap myself to stay awake. The film takes the aspect of a road movie, and puts lots of meaningless « surreal » inserts that are so obvious and pretentious and tries to get style and get a status of « artsy and original film ». It's not that easy making a surreal film, and it has to be more implicit than that. This film is the « pop » of surreal films.It's like saying : « Blink 182, that's punk music, man, they play so fast and they like skateboarding! » or « Limp Bizkit is metal, there are electric guitars in it!!! ».The director probably thought : « Right, so if there are stupid messages saying that society sucks written on walls in some scenes, an overall apocalyptic message or exaggeratedly violent and horny teens, this is surreal stuff! » It seemed like Araki, plugging Neo-nazis, threesomes, some scenes of mildly gory violence (and they are not impressive at all, and trust me, I have seen the unrated version) and loads of swear words simply and gratuitously tried to shock some faint-hearted viewers, even though the film, for a normal person, wouldn't be too disgusting.
The acting is annoying, especially from Rose McGowan, who really shows her phenomenal lack of talent. Right, she plays a shallow character, but her lines are so badly written, stupid, and ridiculously overloaded with F-words in places where they really don't fit. The two guys are not bad, even though they are not impressive.
The scenario is pointless, and the plot is absent, and I guess that was the movie's goal, but it would have worked in something in which the surreal, nihilistic or dadaist spirit would have seemed honest. But I felt like Araki was continuously telling lies, tried to put gruesome and weird stuff (and he failed!) to make original art of this, and still pretended that the film's form was not important. He kind of tried to get away with clean hands with all viewers, those who liked it, and those who didn't. Once again, he failed.
Maybe he tried to be a rebel in teen cinema, but it's still teen cinema, he's not a rebel, just a follower that TRIES to have more personality. The only difference between this and « She's All That » is the pretention behind « The Doom Generation », that's it. This film is nothing revolutionary, like we feel it tried to be. This film clumsily insults its main target audience, teenagers, and adults will find themselves wasting their time watching this (as well as teens!). Oh yeah, and the tagline, that stupidly says : « Sex, violence, whatever » is another thing used to provoke and nourish curiosity, don't get fooled. Shallow, meaningless, boring, pretentious, stupid, plain bad all describe « The Doom Generation ». Period.
1/10
Gregg Araki, who clearly misunderstood the surreal movement, tries to shock us with (Spoilers warning) a pathetic girl having sex with two different guys (and cheating on her boyfriend), having sex with two different guys at the same time, a Chinese guy being decapitated by a shotgun blast, a stupid News program showing butchered children, a guy being dismembered, a guy being raped and having his penis cut off by ridiculous Neo-nazis.wow! What a program! It is so HORRIBLE.I had to slap myself to stay awake. The film takes the aspect of a road movie, and puts lots of meaningless « surreal » inserts that are so obvious and pretentious and tries to get style and get a status of « artsy and original film ». It's not that easy making a surreal film, and it has to be more implicit than that. This film is the « pop » of surreal films.It's like saying : « Blink 182, that's punk music, man, they play so fast and they like skateboarding! » or « Limp Bizkit is metal, there are electric guitars in it!!! ».The director probably thought : « Right, so if there are stupid messages saying that society sucks written on walls in some scenes, an overall apocalyptic message or exaggeratedly violent and horny teens, this is surreal stuff! » It seemed like Araki, plugging Neo-nazis, threesomes, some scenes of mildly gory violence (and they are not impressive at all, and trust me, I have seen the unrated version) and loads of swear words simply and gratuitously tried to shock some faint-hearted viewers, even though the film, for a normal person, wouldn't be too disgusting.
The acting is annoying, especially from Rose McGowan, who really shows her phenomenal lack of talent. Right, she plays a shallow character, but her lines are so badly written, stupid, and ridiculously overloaded with F-words in places where they really don't fit. The two guys are not bad, even though they are not impressive.
The scenario is pointless, and the plot is absent, and I guess that was the movie's goal, but it would have worked in something in which the surreal, nihilistic or dadaist spirit would have seemed honest. But I felt like Araki was continuously telling lies, tried to put gruesome and weird stuff (and he failed!) to make original art of this, and still pretended that the film's form was not important. He kind of tried to get away with clean hands with all viewers, those who liked it, and those who didn't. Once again, he failed.
Maybe he tried to be a rebel in teen cinema, but it's still teen cinema, he's not a rebel, just a follower that TRIES to have more personality. The only difference between this and « She's All That » is the pretention behind « The Doom Generation », that's it. This film is nothing revolutionary, like we feel it tried to be. This film clumsily insults its main target audience, teenagers, and adults will find themselves wasting their time watching this (as well as teens!). Oh yeah, and the tagline, that stupidly says : « Sex, violence, whatever » is another thing used to provoke and nourish curiosity, don't get fooled. Shallow, meaningless, boring, pretentious, stupid, plain bad all describe « The Doom Generation ». Period.
1/10