In 2024, the prospect of a hyper-violent action movie starring The Boys' Karl Urban and bona-fide Hollywood royalty Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson would be quite a prospect. The former is in the ascendancy after some shrewd career moves (dating back to the underappreciated Dredd, honestly), while until recently, former WWE star Johnson has been box office gold. His fortunes have changed somewhat, with some less well-received movies like Black Adam and Red One, but given the right role - as Moana proves - he is still a top draw.

Put them together, and you'd think you'd be onto a winner. But going back 19 years reveals that the pair - who have starred in some of the best action movies and TV shows of the last two decades - reveals that they worked together on a movie that most choose to forget. To date, their only collaboration was a major flop, sitting on a 34% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes, failing to make back its budget at the box office.

But for all the issues with video game adaptation cast as Johnny Cage for Mortal Kombat 2. But what better time to look at his first try, and the overlooked genius that Doom briefly showed?

Why Doom Was So Critically Hated

Another Case Of A Cursed Video Game Adaptation

The last few years have seen some truly great video game adaptations, with the likes of The Last of Us, Fallout, Arcane, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and the Sonic trilogy all coming out in the 2020s. This is a great turnaround given that video game adaptations prior were largely terrible, with Doom ing the long list of failed projects. Upon release, Doom was a financial failure, earning just under $60 million worldwide against a production budget of $70 million, which was a sizable investment for a video game property in the early-mid 2000s.

Doom was also a critical dud, with an 18% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, though audiences liked it more. One of the major criticisms of Doom was how it strayed from its source material, particularly with the origins of the monsters, as well as failing to tap into the atmosphere that makes Doom games so compelling. It just wasn't a good film, but there is one particular scene the movie gets right that shows how cool a proper Doom adaptation could be.

The First Person Sequence In Doom Is One Of The Best Action Movie Scenes Ever

For One Brief Moment, Everything Went Perfectly

During the events of Doom, there is a roughly four-minute scene that embraces the first person shooter aspect of its source material, making it an entertaining moment in an otherwise uninspired movie. In the scene, the camera is fixed from Karl Urban's POV as he attempts to make it through a building against a wave of enemies that appear sporadically throughout. It's the closest thing the adaptation gets right when attempting to translate the game into live-action.

First person scenes are rarely done in films, especially action films, with Hardcore Henry utilizing the technique throughout its entire runtime. It's a fun diversion from what is typically associated with action films, and the switch in perspective breathes some life into Doom when it happens, making it an incredibly cool scene that ranks among some of the best action scenes in film. Doom may not be a great movie, but it does have a really great scene.

Source: The Numbers