The Doom Generation (1995): C

Littered with pop culture references and celebrity cameos, and assuming a laughable attitude of hipster vulgarity, Greg Araki’s The Doom Generation self-consciously strives for transgressive nihilism without ever recognizing the sheer absurdity of its every component. Bitchy Amy (Rose McGowan) and brain-dead boyfriend Jordan (James Duval, doing a third-rate Keanu Reeves impersonation) are disaffected teens convinced of the world’s hellishness, and after a chance encounter with pansexual provocateur Xavier (Johnathon Schaech) – seemingly an impish demon in human form – leads to murder, they become brooding lovers on the run. Amy, Jordan and Xavier travel through an inhospitable America populated by neo-Nazis, murderous freaks and other intolerant monsters, all of whom seek to stifle the threesome’s burgeoning development toward a state of bisexual bliss. Throughout their pointlessly “existential” road trip, Amy says “fuck” (and every other manner of creative swear) 800 times, the trio indifferently swaps sexual partners, and Xavier continues to cavalierly kill those who get in the way. Embarrassingly amateurish, Araki’s film shallowly attempts to approximate the psychosexual underpinnings of like-minded cross-state odysseys (Badlands, Bonnie and Clyde, Natural Born Killers, etc.). The Doom Generation’s faux-shocking dialogue, violence and treatment of sexuality, however, is about as profound as Duval is talented – which is to say, not very.