I am Legend (film)

[spartan117]

It explored the nature of man (the need to have social interactions) and the possible effects of one devoid of social interactions (albeit by catastrophic events) all carried out by an impressive performance by Will Smith. The imagery was powerful and there was even a running theme of fate vs chance.

I did not like the integration of fate as it seemingly took away from the "realistic" setting. It also seemed forced. did the director have to emphasize the butterfly that much in a particular scene. I thought it would have been quite obvious. Oh well...

But what plagues these apocalyptic type of movies (besides the common 'crappyness' involved in many) is that the ending is abrupt. all of sudden everything gets better and everybody is a okay despite not much explanations. Although it wasnt exactly like that but oh so very close.

I admittedly have not read the book (nor heard about it prior to the release of the film) so I dont know if it deviates from the book. I was immensely surprised to learn the book featured vampires. But I supposed that the current creature/humans did display qute a lot of similiarites with vampires.

There were times when I wasnt sure at times whether the Neville had been hallucinating or whether the creature/humans are more intelligent then Neville had thought. But I also felt the movie could have better explained the interaction between the creature/humans themselves. The creature/humans seem to portray a sort of hierachy as one creature clearly displayed superior talents and took on a leadership role. That particular alpha male seemd to show many human characeristics. It appeared angry, revengeful and it seems to mimic what what Neville did while still be intuitive. The alpha male showed some sort of relationship between that female creature. interesting however the movie makes no attempt to expand on such aspects of the creatures. Neville in the movie did take notice but that was merely it.

I enjoyed the movie. It was good film. Not your typical run and gun survival horror film. The creature/humans were much less menacing after the initial encounters. By the time the ending is near they seemed to lose their flair.

[Lord Rahl]

Although Will Smith was good in the movie everything else in it was lacking, at least in my opinion. The director should have watched The Omega Man with Charlton Heston to get some better ideas. Although that movie isn't that good either, I think it surpassed I Am Legend in some ways.

[spartan117]

I describe many as good.

It definitely isnt "must see". There are tons of movies that are of better quality in all aspects by far. I did not see any previous film versions of the I am legend novel. But in the apocalyptic/ "end of humanity" type of films I am Legend is a good movie. Better then stream of zombie movies that were released a few years back. But still most movies in this category suffer like I said from abrupt "everything is better" endings. Cant expect too much in these films I suppose.

[Rapax]

The main shortcoming of the theatrical version was that it completely lost the message of its source material and thereby presented a rather illogical plot. That and the ridiculously overdone CGI monsters made for a rather average movie.

[spartan117]

The main shortcoming of the theatrical version was that it completely lost the message of its source material and thereby presented a rather illogical plot. That and the ridiculously overdone CGI monsters made for a rather average movie.

Yes the cgi was quite noticeable.

By illogical are you referring to---

-the woman and her kid being able to survive prior to meeting will smith
-scientific aspect ("symptoms" of virus to the plant growth in the city with animals wandering, etc)
-? ( I havent seen the movie since in was in theaters-some details alludes me at the moment )

at the movies with ebert and roeper. (video review)

http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/bue...ec=i+am+legend

hmm... I say good movie and it did relatively well at rotten tomatoes.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_am...itic=creamcrop

[Sphere]

I agree with the overall sentiment here. The most compelling aspect of the movie was how the main character coped with living out a life completely devoid of human interaction.

The whole losing his family part of the plot was forced, I never really cared for those characters as it was farily obvious they were going to die at somepoint in the flashback scenes. Also, fear of the zombies dwindled rapidly after the first scene in the warehouse.

As mentioned before, the whole "fate" theme brought up at the end to tie everything together, as if he were some messiah sent to save the world, what was that? It was completely out of place and took a lot of gravity out of the plot instead of adding it.

Overall, the first half of the movie when things move slowly, the danger is lurking in the shadows, the main character is stable yet hints at being unstable, was good. In the second half, things are rushed, the danger is mostly gone, and the plot is no longer compelling, and the conclusion was a big "meh".

If you didn't catch it in theatres, it is not worth seeing. I would recommend the 28 Days & 28 Weeks Later movies if you are looking for something of this genre. They leave you with some deeper thoughts than just Will Smith is good at saving the human race.

[Rapax]

By illogical are you referring to---

Well there's probably lots you could nitpick, but I was basically refering to the premise of the infected as being set up as aggressive, dumb animals, only to later have them show intelligence in planning and executing a trap for neville and then give the movie this dumb ending with them acting like aggressive, dumb animals again and neville's only way to cope with them is a hand grenade to blow everybody up.
Great. Kinda defeats the whole point of the original that the infected weren't actually monsters but developed a society all by themselves which saw Neville as the monster for how he hunted them.

Since the movie has an alternative ending, I didn't even spoil it. Neville dies in one and lives in the other, so pick what you like. Him living actually fits better with the original story, but I guess test audiences didn't like it.

Oh and yes, Will Smiff made the movie as usual. I don't think people went to see "I am Legend", they just wanted to see him do his thing.

[Thompson45cal.]

Although Will Smith was good in the movie everything else in it was lacking, at least in my opinion. The director should have watched The Omega Man with Charlton Heston to get some better ideas. Although that movie isn't that good either, I think it surpassed I Am Legend in some ways.

My impression was, it was a poorly done remake of The Omega Man in a lot of regards and I agree, one was worse then the other, and neither were that good.

Thompson45cal.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Well there's probably lots you could nitpick, but I was basically refering to the premise of the infected as being set up as aggressive, dumb animals, only to later have them show intelligence in planning and executing a trap for neville and then give the movie this dumb ending with them acting like aggressive, dumb animals again and neville's only way to cope with them is a hand grenade to blow everybody up.
Great. Kinda defeats the whole point of the original that the infected weren't actually monsters but developed a society all by themselves which saw Neville as the monster for how he hunted them.

Exactly. I much preferred the book's meaning of "legend" to be the way vampires are "legendary" to us. "I Am Legend" as a novel remains one of my favourite scifi horror books of all time while the movie remains one of the most disappointing movies of all time.

[xzyx]

In my humble personal opinion, Will Smith is one of the worst actors holywood has to offer, and again he proved his crappiness by making another "zombie" movie. The difference is: instead of getting you scared he just gets you nervous, with an extremely forced enviroment (I mean NO zombie/vampire/whatever never considered following to his house and hiding in the buildings nearby to see where he lived?come on...the movie say they weren't complete retarded... About the novel, I haven't read it but the last movie Will made from a novel not only was completely different from the books history but also was completely AGAINST all the ideals Isaac Asimov (I,robot if you don't know) stand for. The movie shows robots kind of taking the world...asimov isthe main defender of the theory that they will always serve the humans and that the world will never go "Matrix"

[removeduser_426582376423734]

That's hardly Smith's fault. He didn't write the script. He just played the actor, and well.