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The “Reaper virus” devastates the population of Scotland and forces the government to wall the area off from the rest of the U.K. 27 years later the virus threatens to spread to London and the military sends beautiful, dispassionate badass Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) back to the hot zone to lead a team of soldiers in search of a surviving scientist (Malcolm McDowell) and a possible cure.

Big question: Is this movie anything more than a cheap hybrid of “Resident Evil,” “Land of the Dead,” “Escape From New York” and “The Road Warrior”?

Catch it: A futuristic amalgam of slick cars, S&M-loving punks and a medieval community that wears armor and travels on horseback, “Doomsday” has no shortage of ideas and over-the-top action set-pieces. Whether that makes it an unwieldy mess or a consistently surprising guilty pleasure will be a matter of taste, but it's hardly the abomination suggested by the absence of advance critics’ screenings. That ill-advised decision simply highlights a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the studio, probably because this is the sort of rough-and-tumble B-movie Hollywood just doesn't know how to deal with.

Skip it: If you think rabbits are man’s best friend, you probably won’t enjoy seeing one blown to pieces as a sight gag.

Bottom line: It's refreshing to see a movie like this that isn't based on a videogame or a graphic novel and, though it borrows liberally from George Romero and George Miller, “Doomsday” proves itself as much more than a second-rate knockoff. Expect a rabid cult following to develop around the scrappy, graphically violent flick that will further fuel geek devotion to emerging genre director Neil Marshall ("Dog Soldiers" and "The Descent"). He proves it doesn’t take hundreds of millions to make an exciting action epic with a thoroughly realized $30 million vision that's more inventive than all of Michael Bay’s movies combined.

Bonus: There’s a standout scene where punk leader Sol (a brazenly demented Craig Conway) makes a grand entrance to the Fine Young Cannibals’ ‘80s hit “Good Thing.” Considering his eating habits it's a safe bet that the musical selection wasn’t a coincidence.

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