`Doom Generation' combines elements from trendy movies
Doom Generation chronicles the journey of three by-products of a decaying America: alienated teenage slackers raised in the glow of music videos.
Sweet, naive Jordan White (James Duvall) is having sex for the first time with his speed-queen girlfriend Amy Blue (Rose McGowan) in her car when ambisexual "demon from hell" Xavier Red (Jonathon Schaech) dramatically enters the couple's lives. Xavier releases his karmic maelstrom on the already unhappy couple, and the three, bonded by a gruesome murder at a quickie mart, flee across the barren wilderness of urban/suburban America.
Careening through the nocturnal wasteland of cheap motels, convenience stores, fast food restaurants and open highways, the band of outsiders push the limits of their sexuality. Sexual boundary lines blur, inhibitions dissolve and their carnal deviance ultimately carries lethal consequences.
And the lucky audience gets to watch every moment of their sensual explorations. Writer-director Araki's extended auteurial wank quickly grows tiresome. The continual coitus isn't erotic; it isn't arousing. It's not offensive -- just boring, that's all.Watching people have sex simply isn't all that interesting. Watching Xavier masturbate proves even less scintillating. Could these characters please do something else? Please?
Besides killing people, that is. Xavier gets off almost as much on offing convenience store clerks as he does on tasting his own semen. The extended blood-and-guts murder scenes seem more violent than necessary. The climactic scene especially transforms the movie from soft-core porn and cartoonish violence into a harrowingly explicit slasher flick.
Sex and violence in films aren't inherently bad, but there should be something surrounding them. Doom Generation doesn't quite fill this void. It's hard to find the movie's point.
It's not even clear whether the film attempts to be realistic or wallows in camp. Bad dialogue and shallow acting are fine, when they're obviously intended. Sometimes cheese is brie; here it's just Velveeta.
If Araki had settled on one direction or the other, the movie would be much more effective. But the script and the actors all oscillate between attempted sincerity and thick irony. While not quite bad enough to be satirizing typical teen film fare, the dialogue doesn't resonate with anything real-life teenagers might say. Jordan actually says, "I'm bummed to the max." The others express their situation as, "Life is lonely and boring and dumb," and, "There's no place for us in this world."
Nothing about this movie is its own. Doom Generation appropriates images from Pulp Fiction (Amy looks much like Uma Thurman), Kids (Jordan tells Amy he's afraid of getting AIDS), Clerks (weird people in convenience stores) and other movies popular with this generation. Jordan could be Keanu Reeves (his acting is of about the same caliber, as he delivers astute lines like "My woody's starting to droop). The resulting montage carries none of its components' cinematic power.
Another problem is that the movie tentatively steps onto interesting paths, then abandons them. Amy never eats; will the movie address teenage eating disorders? Jordan mentions AIDS; will that reappear? He mentions Amy's crystal meth habit: Will that explain her behavior? The number 666 occurs repeatedly (Amy's combined SAT score, the cost of meals); will Satanism be an issue? Had Araki explored any of these avenues, these hints would make sense.
Doom Generation isn't all bad. The far-out, surreal images, which the director likens to a bad drug trip, prove compelling at times.
The best thing about the movie is its clever use of unlikely cameos. The unique characters in supporting roles bolster the movie's vision of itself as representing the MTV generation. Heidi Fleiss, Lauren Tewes from "The Love Boat," Christopher Knight of "The Brady Bunch," Amanda Bearse from "Married ... with Children," Dustin Nguyen of "21 Jump Street" and Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction turn up in various scenes.
Araki explains, "I wanted a different kind of cameo ... I wanted the experience to be like falling asleep in front of the TV late at night and having these weird people entering your nightmares." Doom Generation opens Nov. 17 at the River Oaks Theatre, 2009 W. Gray. Call 524-2175 for information.
This item appeared in the Arts & Entertainment section of the November 10, 1995 issue.
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