I Am Legend (Or Not)

Managed to get around to watching I Am Legend over the break and being somewhat of a fan of The Omega Man I had high hopes for the film. I felt the pace of the film was all wrong, they started off well enough and the film was building up nicely with flashbacks filling in the pieces nicely. Then all of a sudden it was over with some cheap narrative at the end. Very disappointed they didn't make better use of this storyline. I'll be watching reruns of the omega man in the future. Anyone else seen it? Penny for your thoughts.

 

Went to see it last week, had high hopes as well as the story has some very good movie potential. As you sed it started out very nice and the flashbacks were a good source of info, but it just needs 'more'.. it was just all over too quickly and too easy. All in all, the movie was just 'ok', while it could have been so much more. I haven't seen The Omega Man, I'll check it out if I ever come across it.

 

Precisely my thoughts as well. They really could've done the second half better I reckon. They did a good job of making New York look deserted though. Tried pretty hard to spot anything they forgot to edit out

Spoiler

Anyone else find the dog annoying? Not as in annoying like a pest but like annoying cos the film made you worry about him since he can still get infected. It was a bit of relief when it DID happened though, lol.

 

I felt the same, the movie started out well, but the second half seemed rushed.
The story could have been played out fully over another 30 - 60 minutes

 

thought the whole concept was quite cool and the overgrown city was just awesome, but yea, it felt like it lacked that little something.

I thought the length was good as I'm sick of these 3 hour films that make me loose the ability to walk after sitting down for so long.

I hated the end. The way she turned up because of god, and that it was fate... It was going good till then.

The fresh prince did good at acting the insane guy who's been alone for a teeny bit too long.

Not sure why there was that point made about Sam the dog actually being a girly dog called Samantha. It was Sam the entire time, and then when she was about to die, suddenly it was almost like they wanted to make a point: this dog was a girl dog. Perhaps they had been calling it Sam, up until that point and then realised that viewers might pick up on the fact that Sam didn't have all the right man dog bits.

Overall, I'd give it a 6 out of 10

 

Some of the worst CGI I think I've ever seen in a big-budget movie. What was wrong with just using some actors with good make-up and such?

 

Will Smith sucks as an actor. This film blows more than he does.

 

thought it was pretty good apart from the end!!! wtf???

 

I thought the ending was a bit of a let down. But I loved the film, I saw it for the second time 3 days ago after getting 'round to seeing it a week earlier. Even the second time I found my heart racing, I thought it did a great job engrossing you into the film.

 

Microsoft took me to see the film three or so weeks ago at the launch of Video Marketplace. It blows the Omega Man out of the water for the most part, mainly because OM is a crap film. Legend itself was OKish to my mind, at least until the

Spoiler

girl turns up and the whole 'oh, it was GOD!'

thing happens.

What disappointed me most was that until that bit happened the film was a a decent movie adaptation of the book, changing bits that were required, but keeping the overall tone of the novel. The end of the film is utterly contrary to the novel in everyway though. The ending to Matheson's book was the best bit, something which lodged in your mind forever and made you look at the entire plot in a new way. To throw that away was stupid and made the radical change of pace in the last quarter feel forced, lame and poorly handled IMHO.

It's much better to read the book first. There's a reason SF Masterworks ranks it as the 2nd most important and best SF book ever written, not only is it the first novel to successfully meld vampire horror with sci-fi drama, but it's astonishingly well written to boot.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Am-Legend-M...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199390871&sr=8-1

Plus, in the book, the dog has a massively different and less annoying role.

 

Mt thoughts exactly. I left the cinema wondering if they ran out of time and fast forwarded to the end to chuck us out.

 

You got that right. The vampire thingys looked like they were based on the rubbish CGI in The Mummy Returns.

I thought they rushed through it far too quickly. It would have been way better to have added an extra 20-30mins of setting the scene with Willy being alone etc. I never really felt convinced by that at all. New York looked great but it was too small and constricted, they missed some big money shots with the famous landmarks imho. I felt it was struggling to carry the movie with just Will and the dog, and it always felt like it was building up to something else happening - which I felt killed the atmosphere. The acting was good though.

Like K has said though, the CGI was a total dead loss. Even the lion at the beginning looked like it was from a video game FMV sequence. How hard would it be to actually use real people with decent animatronics? Presumably harder and more expensive than cheap looking computer generated stuff.

 

Moving along to the plot for a second...

Spoiler

if he planned to be there, why was he driving a SUV instead of an APC/tank?! Why didn't he live in a secured section of that aircraft carrier?

 

Paid by the word? The Omega Man is no competition Vs. this garbage I am (not) legend.

 

Saw it today and thought it was okay, effects a bit iffy in places but I can look past that and see what they were trying to do. The Omega man was okay in its time as well but seems a bit dated now but I can forgive it for that even if Charlton Heston really did make a total arse of himself in Bowling for Colombine - toe curling cringible to watch. I never did see the Vincent Price version from 1964, anybody out there seen it? It was called Last Man on Earth and borrowed heavily from the book concepts from what I've read about it and apparently was a reasonably good film.

I am Legend was okay as a film, as an interperatation of the book not so okay but that is so often the case and it did seem a little rushed but I suppose there is only so much of Will Smith wandering about a deserted NY that they can get away with. I don't think they should have made Neville the all powerful superman type - a soldier, a scientist, immune to the virus and the one seeking the cure all rolled into one was just a bit much to swallow in one bite. In saying that I agree that he did a pretty good job of playing someone who was going off the rails with the isolation and the terror the vamp/zombies caused.
All in all I would say B- for this effort but I reckon the real version to see would have been the one by Ridley Scott - minus Arnie though as he simply would would not have been believable as Neville.

PS Speaking of Superman, anybody catch the movie poster in Times Square advertising the upcoming Batman/Superman film? The release date was sometime in 2010, is this maybe a hint from Warner?

 

Don't be a cock.

Someone else has a different opinion. Stop the press!

I'm a big fan of the book, and I can't wait to see this film, even if it does have a strange and controversial ending.

 

Agreed.

 

It's looked pretty good to me


What do you guys think of Cloverfield???

 

Oooh, looking forward to that. I wish they would stop releasing new trailers though. It was better not knowing what the hell was going on.

 

The trailer for that film that was on for I Am Legend has been doing the rounds for ages - since Transformers I think? Looks promising, especially the hand held camera/home movie aspect. It won't be called Cloverfield (imho) when it's released though.