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I AM LEGEND

 
  

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Mark Parsons
22:25 / 21.12.07
Did not see a thread so started one.

I saw this opening week and was flabbergasted. For about an hour and a half, it's a beautiful film, a true classic, IMO. The director really brought his A-game and Smith does a great job at portraying a man who feels he may have lost everything but still keeps trying to keep hope alive.

Then it has to go and END with what I thought was a stunningly mismatched third act. I've read that there were reshoots in November - bits from all three acts were tweaked/altered - but the movie goes so badly off the rails, I suspect that act three was totally reshot.

I'd still recommend the movie to genre fans: it's sumptuous and evocative and worth seeing o the bog screen. Just be prepared for a classy movie that turns into a Hollywood product by tale's end.

Will post some spoilery commentary of there's interest in discussion.
 
 
Essential Dazzler
00:04 / 22.12.07
I've read the book and seen the trailer, and I wasn't really interested until I heard that Mike Patton was hired to provide the voice parts for the creatures.

Now I want to see it, is that really wrong of me?
 
 
PatrickMM
02:46 / 22.12.07
I didn't find the third act as major a reversal as others seem to have. Thankfully, the movie avoids the quippy tone of most Hollywood action movies throughout, and the ending is by no means an easy happy ending. But, it is those early moments that are so striking. The New York location shooting was astonishing, these are streets I was just walking around on. It's not an all time classic, but I was thoroughly entertained. I just wished they hadn't used CGI for the zombievampire creatures, that took me out of the film, and there was no particular reason for them to not just be people in makeup.
 
 
Aha! I am Klarion
20:07 / 27.12.07
I thought it was a good movie. My highest praise would be that it felt like it was 20 minutes long; I was so absorbed in events on screen that time just receded. I wished it was longer as I felt like either some of the back story or the tension on the post-apoc. streets could have been greatly expanded. Also, the third act seemed to lack substance and went by too quickly.

I agree that the CGI Vampires were lame. But not completely ineffective. I too would have preferred make-up (Del Toro did great things in Blade 2 with hairless vamps, why not just steal that? Lose the jaw popping and it would have been perfect).

I, of course, teared up when the dog passed. Big softie.
 
 
Aha! I am Klarion
20:23 / 27.12.07
I also have to say that I actually liked the ending, even if it did feel a bit off. It didn't get new-agey like Signs (as in being obnoxious), but worked for someone who loves the Invisibles. Its a good flick.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:15 / 27.12.07
Without TOO many spoilers, how accurate is the ending to that of the novel?
 
 
Bear
22:13 / 27.12.07
Without spoiling, which might in turn SPOIL but the ending is nothing at all like the book.

I quite liked it but I'm a sucker for empty cities but the book is a whole lot better.
 
 
Kali, Queen of Kitteh
22:40 / 27.12.07
Amen, brother!

The ending is a complete joke. The first two parts of the film are really well done and then it's all a cock-up.

Know whom I blame? Test audiences. Blech.
 
 
CameronStewart
22:51 / 27.12.07
I wasn't really interested until I heard that Mike Patton was hired to provide the voice parts for the creatures.

Now I want to see it, is that really wrong of me?


I felt the same way. I'm a Patton nerd too.
 
 
Kali, Queen of Kitteh
22:56 / 27.12.07
Pardon my ignorance, but we're not talking about Mike Patton of musical fame, are we?

Probably not.

(crestfallen)
 
 
Essential Dazzler
23:10 / 27.12.07
Rise up, crest!

We are!
 
 
Kali, Queen of Kitteh
23:25 / 27.12.07
HOLY. SHIT.
 
 
Mark Parsons
01:12 / 28.12.07
I liked the vamps. Apparently, the director thought that humans in SFX make up would not be able to sistain odd movements, and I liked their unearthly vibe. They were not totally successful, but I accepted them.
 
 
Seth
10:28 / 28.12.07
NOT WORTH MY TIME!
 
 
jentacular dreams
10:51 / 28.12.07
I enjoyed it. Though the similarities to both the Omega Man and 28 Days Later were immediate, I was surprised to find out how old the book was, and to what extent it had influenced 'zombie' films for the last few decades.

The first act is, I agree, breathtaking, but the third much less so. Part of me wanted more exposition of the nemesis, but that would probably have made for a much poorer film had it been explored.

To think, if this had been filmed a decade ago, we might have had to put up with Schwarzenegger instead.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
11:45 / 28.12.07
I'm really looking forward to seeing it. My inner purist's going "no! it's the ending that makes I Am Legend the great book it is", and then my more sensible self is smacking it over the head with a plank, going "well what about Blade Runner then, you fuckstick?"
 
 
Paralis
01:26 / 03.01.08
I think the best thing that can be said about it is that it's not a silly film. My expectation certainly ran that way, given Will Smith's involvement, and some of the laughable moments in both the novella and The Omega Man. As ludicrous as I Am Legend gets, there is no Jewish vampire who can't bear the sight of the Torah, and not once is Neville's encampment referred to as a "honky paradise." So it's got that going for it.

But it's very messy, because it takes bits and pieces from The Omega Man and Matheson's novel and doesn't really stop to reconcile them. I'm a bit torn as to whether more exposition of the Darkseekers would make for a better film, but to elide that entirely basically rips the heart out of the book. The whole idea of the virus as evolution (and by proxy political allegory) is completely absent, but there's nothing to replace it--just a lot of images of butterflies with no real significance, and the most articulate God this side of the Old Testament without any examination of what that means.

Which is really too bad, because so much of it is so well done. Neville in the kitchen with Ana just about made the film for me until everything else happened.
 
 
Benny the Ball
04:22 / 03.01.08
Couple of questions in the attached spoiler tag;


[+] [-] Spoiler


Opening fantastic, but then the CGI creatures looked too light and all seemed to be one character.
 
 
jentacular dreams
10:42 / 03.01.08
I think the answers are yes, yes, and no.

I was also slightly annoyed by the way that since the vampombie's were all pale, they all had to also wear pale clothes.
 
 
Spaniel
16:10 / 03.01.08
There were ones wearing dark clothes too. I saw them. Identical dark clothes.
 
 
Augury
02:01 / 05.01.08
I enjoyed this, but from the start, I was asking myself "How does a virus that cures cancer become something that makes you a vampire?"

I kept waiting for some explanation, but it did not happen.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
10:29 / 14.01.08
Just briefly - we watched a really good pirate version the other day, presumably ripped straight from the master. The slight jerkiness of the illegitimate version and watching it on a small screen completely made up for the obvious deficiencies in the CGI... the vampires were genuinely scary-looking.

Really enjoyed it... mind you, I'm one of those who thought the original story was bobbins, so there you go...
 
 
Benny the Ball
11:35 / 14.01.08
Jack, you wouldn't steal and handbag, you wouldn't steal a car etc....
 
 
thewalker
07:24 / 15.01.08
[+] [-] Spoiler So I'm confused - was the .......



I was pretty sure :


maybe spoiler.....




sharkspatrolthesewaters.......











it was one he had set himself and forgotten about....
 
 
Triplets
11:36 / 15.01.08
See, that's what I figured but then you have to take into account that other "character" which got moved to the same spot, which makes it seem more like a trap set, or at least modified, by someone else. Yeah?

I was quite suprised how, like 28 Days Later, the zombpires reminded me of stereotyped football hooligans. Did anyone else feel this? You've got the obvious rushing violent crowds etc but the main zombpire - far bigger, with a brutish face - seemed to almost be enjoying getting to Smith at the end. Then that scene, again, after the Fredtrap when he comes out of the hole in the building - it almost looked like he was letting loose/handling those zombiedogs.
 
 
Benny the Ball
11:51 / 15.01.08
that's completely how I read it. I think there was more story that was shaved from the final cut to make it shorter. The greatest problem is that the zompires were too alike to make distinguishment possible, so such a story line didn't work.
 
 
Not in the Face
09:22 / 16.01.08
I think that a lot of the zombires was a bit rushed and perhaps cut between different interpetations


SPOILERS









As to the trap, my initial viewing was that the zombires had set the trap but looking back on it that seems a little odd, although the film does hint at them having enhanced strength. The vibe I got was that the viewer was supposed to think they were more than just pits of rage - the first sight of them standing around in the dark indicated some sort of social activity - if they were just full of rage they would be attacking each other. I also think the head zombire was supposed to be 'unleashing' the dogs at the trap again with the implication that they were trained (although how you train rabid animals I don't know). Mostly I think it shirked from anything that might humanise the monsters. The CG-ing achieved the same - by giving them a supernatural element in their movement and strength it reinforced the idea of them as monsters rather than victims. Its been a while since I watched the Omega Man but I remember really liking the scenes where Charlton Heston and the leader of the robed vamps shouted at each other. So that was a shame on one hand but did make Smith's isolation in the first 2/3 of the film really gripping and I think Smith did an excellent job in portraying someone whose addiction to routine and an impossible goal was the only thing holding him together mentally and when the other two turned up was the highlight of the movie (along with his first entrance into the building)

My pet peeve was where have all the bodies gone? 95% mortality rate with 4% zombires and New York being isolated. Although probably the sight of Smith driving his car at high speeds over the massed skeletons of New Yorkers might have been a bit too much, it was a jarring aspect for me.
 
 
Automatic
09:39 / 16.01.08
Someone who worked on the CG for this film posted what happened in the original ending.

Spoilers...

The female vampire/zombie that Will Smith's been experimenting on turns out to be the girlfriend of the main zombie/vampire thing. Which explains why they're setting traps for him and so on. The original ending proceeds in much the same way, except instead of blowing himself up with a grenade. Will Smith returns the girl to them and the film ends on a shaky truce. I think that's how it went anyway.

I believe most of the Christian elements of the film were added in a reshoot in November. They seemed quite out of place to me at the time personally.

However, I did find it quite curious that a big-budget Hollywood film would end with Will Smith discovering religion, and then almost immediately turning into a suicide bomber to wipe out the godless hordes.
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
10:48 / 31.01.08
finally saw it yesterday. Best Supporting actors: dogs who played Samantha! i got teary eyed myself.

yeah, all that you guys said. plus: not only light-weight CGI zombires, but the fact that they had a leader put me off. if they had used the truce ending he would totally make sense - but not in the way it was presented in the official cut.

the movie should end with the shot of Smith hanging upside-down inthe trap and hordes of zombires approaching...

the Bob marley scene - completely unnecessary. more than having to buy Smith as an expert military biochemist, the movie asks us to buy Alice Braga - CITY OF GOD's pothead as she is - as a brazilian who's never heard of Marley. COME ON! even those not into weed here know who he is. i dunno, I blame Akiva.

i guess the movie also failed in setting the idea that the whole world was affected by the plague. the quarenteen gave it sort a ESCAPE FROM NY feel and had me thinking if Smith was just being fooled by a small pack of very wealthy white men outside of the border. which the final scene kind of proves he was...

all in all, yeah - it was worthy for the dog and beautiful empity NY landscapes.
 
 
Triplets
12:41 / 31.01.08
a brazilian who's never heard of Marley.

I've spoken to a woman a little younger than me (I'm 24) who knew nothing of Hendrix. It's not that unbelievable. Pointless in the film, but not unbelievable.
 
 
Dead Megatron
14:12 / 31.01.08
My pet peeve was where have all the bodies gone?

Food, dude. They were all eaten by the infected.

a brazilian who's never heard of Marley.

I've spoken to a woman a little younger than me (I'm 24) who knew nothing of Hendrix. It's not that unbelievable. Pointless in the film, but not unbelievable.


Not unbelievable, but very unlikely. Though Hendrix is not Marley, not knowing either of them is, as Will Smith says in the film, "unacceptable". IMHO, of course.

That movie gave me insomnia, something that only the very best horror and/or zombie movies do. But, unlike most zombie movies, the threat of the zombified canibals takes second stage to the oppresive loneliness that is destroying Neville's sanity (most zombe flicks deal with a group of survivors, not a single one), which I think it the core and heart of the movie, and what made it so scary (not that the superfast, superstrong, photophobic zombies were not scary too. Though, how long can a human body stand a disease that makes them highly feverish and with a constant 200 heartbeat per minute rate without burning up and dying? More than three years?)

[spoiler]

To me, the most scary moment was when Neville goes into the dark building after Sam and runs into the group of mutants sleeping standing up. Regardless of all we know, the dark will always be fucking scary, won't it? And the part in which Neville forgets about the trap he set with Fred the manequim and start asking it "Are you real? Say something or I'll shoot you!" (or something to that effect) until falling into the trap very well writen.

However, I did find it quite curious that a big-budget Hollywood film would end with Will Smith discovering religion, and then almost immediately turning into a suicide bomber to wipe out the godless hordes.

Yeah, I found it very ironic too. I wonder if they realized what they were doing.
 
 
Dead Megatron
14:21 / 31.01.08
And the part in which Neville forgets about the trap he set with Fred the manequim and start asking it "Are you real? Say something or I'll shoot you!" (or something to that effect) until falling into the trap very well writen.

Though, thinking back, it could have been the mutants who set the trap, could it not? Which would make Neville's video statement that there was no remaining human behavior in the infected a flat out lie... to himself.
 
 
jentacular dreams
14:52 / 31.01.08
I think it was supposed to be the mutants who set the trap dude, learning and using his own tricks against him (traps and dogs).
 
 
Paralis
15:12 / 31.01.08
Whereas I prefer to believe the trap was set by Anna, who represents the disintegration of Neville's mind as he is forced to confront his beliefs on the existence of God, the sociability of vampires, and the universal fame and saving powers of one Bob Marley.

It's flimsy, but it allows one to pretend that the last 30 minutes of the film are delusion, and makes for a better viewing experience on the whole. The bacon is safe.
 
 
Dead Megatron
17:10 / 31.01.08
I think it was supposed to be the mutants who set the trap dude, learning and using his own tricks against him (traps and dogs).

Yeah, that possibility didn't occur to me until right after I wrote the post. At first I thought he just forgot he set that trap, which would be further sign of his mental deterioration.
 
  

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