I Am Legend

THE SCOOP
Director: Francis Lawrence
Plot: Years after a plague kills most of humanity and transforms the rest into monsters, the sole survivor in New York City struggles valiantly to find a cure.

Genre: Action/Drama/Horror/Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Thriller
Awards: -
Runtime: 101min
Rating: PG for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence.

IN RETROSPECT
One of the most highly anticipated films of 2007 turned out to be a dud. I Am Legend, a remake of sorts, and an adaptation of Richard Matheson novel, has a premise that is potentially explosive, one that will make the cash register sing. A sci-fi horror in nature, I Am Legend will attract viewers just by the plot itself and of course, the charisma of its star, Will Smith.

Smith is typecast as someone with a lonely existence, but with a zest for life and a personal quest to reverse the deadly effects of a plague that has turned most into carnivorous, light-terrorized zombies that thrive menacingly when dusk breaks. His performance is ever-improving, maybe it comes from being recently Oscar-nominated. The rest of the cast is abysmal though, maybe it comes from being CGI-ed. The zombies while effectively created, does not frighten as much in the second half the film than in the first.

That being said, I Am Legend is a movie of two halves. A promising start that depicts New York City in the most desolate and lifeless ever, with added eerie suspense to match, to an utterly garbage second half that is both cliché and dumb, and contrastingly much less scary. For most parts of the film, it treads on thin ice, threatening to become another “one of those horror disaster flicks”. Occasionally, the ice breaks, but Smith saves the day.

Director Francis Lawrence (Constantine) doesn’t have a proven track record; it’s no wonder that I Am Legend is this year’s most high-profile failure. This is a playground for Steven Spielberg (War Of The Worlds) and James Cameron (Aliens). One wonders what magic they would have infused into the film. I Am Legend is poorly-edited, with sudden cuts, as well as equally sudden loud bangs and crashes that irritates more than it scares. The score by James Newton Howard (The Village) is also one of his worst of his career.

Sometimes bad films are at the very least entertaining, think Transformers, or for that matter Die Hard 4.0. I Am Legend lacks substance, and will disappoint fans of the genre. It will continue to break box-office records though, but it also reminds us that popularity doesn’t equate to quality. If you enjoy mediocre films, here’s one to recommend. I Am Dismal could have been a more apt title.

SCORE: 5/10
[www.filmnomenon.blogspot.com]
All rights reserved!

Singapore's Most Prolific Film Blogger @ www.filmnomenon.blogspot.com

Last updated: 2010-07-24 11:33:14 by eternality_tan

How would you feel if you were in a now deserted New York City, with a dog? Not just any deserted city though, this city is deserted by the human race, but crawling with zombies. Hungry zombies, that would eat the like of what they used to be. They are perhaps getting back at those who killed them, those who tried to destroy the cancer with a virus, but instead destroyed most of the human race, which was why they became what they are now.
Robert and his dog Sam, are all alone in a big house. There is barely any other signs of life around them, besides deer and lions that roam the city. Bolting the doors, and sliding the shudders close they sleep at night while the zombies roam freely outdoors in the dark, hungry, looking for something to eat.
Robert is actually trying to fix the virus, to bring New York back to life again, he tries many things, on rats, and most drastically on the zombies, he recklessly catches to test on. The zombies grow angry that he has their people, even though Robert is truely trying to help him. His life grows more dangerous each day he works.
My thoughts: I had never watched a zombie movie before, and therefore it was interesting in a way. I jumped several times, and was on the verge of tears in other parts.
The best parts about it was the CGI, the explosions and the music.
It wasn’t an uplifting movie, but the thought of the story is rather creative. Roberts feelings were very easy to feel yourself, for instance his love, fear, loneliness and frustration were transmitted beautifully.
Sexual content: Extremely brief glimpse of some sketches of nude females, but nothing really serious is shown. Robert exercises without a shirt.
Language: Most language, if not all of it is heard during just one scene; Robert uses H- and D-n three times each. Other parts are only mild, such as exclamations of Gods name, but never with a D word.
Violence: You have to understand it is a movie about zombies. The creatures appear several times, sometimes in hoards, sometimes single. Whether or not there are a lot of them, they yell, and screech, and the sight of them could be disturbing to some ages.
The zombies have zombie dogs, whom are very vicious looking, and once attack Roberts dog.
Robert is suspended in the air by a trap, and blood drips from his head. He also falls and lands on top of his knife which gets stuck in his leg. He is once attack by mad zombies, and his face gets bloody, (mainly a bloody nose and some scratches) He runs over tons of zombies with a car in anger. A deer is attacked by a lion, and a dead deer is found in the zombies hideout, (Robert found the deer by tracking the blood on the floor). You may jump in some of the suspense scenes, for you can never be sure when a zombie will pop out.
Lots of explosions, and firing of machine guns. Robert kills several zombies these ways in his own self-defense. He also explodes in anger for a second in various places.
Conclusion: It depends on if you like zombie movies. Other then that, the explosions, the music and the acting was awesome! The feelings were real. They were really read.
Here is the trailer, which I find really good.
I will post a warning again for younger or senseative people. There are a few scary images. That’s it  though.

Hannah E.

Would you want to survive the apocalypse? Isn’t life hard enough already? From Soylent Green through to Waterworld the worst part of the apocalypse is surviving it. Where would you propose to buy your dental floss after Armageddon? Who would, in the immortal words of Joyce Grenfell, clean the drains? The apocalypse isn’t sanitary. It doesn’t care that your under-arms would smell. And besides, who’d have time to worry about personal hygiene with zombies and lord-knows-what-else on the loose? This (the zombie part) is the dilemma that confronts Will Smith in I Am Legend. He copes better than most of us would, but still – post-apocalyptic life is bleak.

As in a lot of recent zombie movies, the cause of half the world turning into ravenous killers (ravenous killer zombies for you cynics out there) isn’t supernatural but scientific. In 2009 a scientist who looks suspiciously like Emma Thompson develops a cure for cancer. The cure mutates, becomes air-born, and three years later… Will Smith is the last man left alive in New York. We learn later that the mutated Krippen Virus (what did they expect from a cancer cure named after a wife-murderer?) has killed 90% of humanity and turned 9 of the remaining 10% into zombies. In the beginning it’s just Will and his dog and his souped-up car, tooling ’round Manhattan, hunting deer.

Considering he’s the only person on screen for a surprising amount of screen-time, Will Smith holds your eye remarkably well. His character is a sort of soldier-scientist-husband-father-Everyman who only exists in movies; the sort of guy who’s equally at home with Bunsen burners as he is with smart-bombs. We know, from his flashbacks, that he was a family man until the world ended, and that, in a very American way, he still thinks he can fix the apocalypse – even after everyone’s dead. Smith seems to have spent his time since world’s end working in a laboratory in the basement of his Upper West Side brownstone. Where he gets power and running water from is anyone’s guess, but he’s inching toward a cure for Krippen and his search gives the movie 00’s drive in place of 1970’s apocalypse-movie indolence.

Two scenes that stand out both involve Smith, his dog, and zombies. The first comes early, when Smith’s dog runs into a derelict apartment building. Zombies can’t come out in daylight, but in the dark of derelict apartment buildings they stand around all day… eviling. When Smith steps into the dark and his torch illuminates blood on the staircase – it’s Blair Witch-time for the audience (and that’s Blair Witch the first time you saw it, when it was bloody terrifying). The second nerve-shredder comes when Smith is caught in the open after-dark and a pack of zombie dogs comes after him. It’s all “Eep! Eep! Get outta there!” stuff, but director Francis Lawrence cranks the suspense like a master, and some things, like last minute escapes, never go out of style. Lawrence is a guy you probably don’t know of, who directedConstantine. He’s fast-becoming the go-to bloke in Hollywood for slick, slightly-nasty fantasy entertainment, and he gives I Am Legend a polish that makes even the goofy parts seem credible.

Apocalypse movies work when you feel the dread. In that sense, I Am Legend is dread-full. This is not the thinking man’s apocalypse movie that some might claim it to be, but it doesn’t pale in comparison to 28 Days Later either. To describe it as enjoyable would be a stretch, but it does what all good apocalypse movies do well – alternately leaving you drained and glad to still be part of a thriving civilization. There’s some discussion about God in the movie, but it’s Sunday School talk and not open to debate. When the end comes, maybe it’s true there are no atheists in a foxhole, but frankly – I think I’d rather be dead. Surviving the apocalypse seems awfully hard work.

BOTTOM LINE: The film tries really hard to be different to the standard zombie flick, but it just meanders along, lacking tension thanks to unconvincing CGI. Not even Will Smith's most impressive performance to date can raise this film above its poorer qualities.

HE GOOD: "I Am Legend" has a premise which will be familiar to any zombie fan; a human-created virus wipes out most of the population on the planet. Those that don't die are turned in to zombie-like monsters, with only a select few immune. Enter Will Smith, the sole survivor in New York City. He wanders the empty streets with his dog, trying to find a cure. The story is hardly new (despite being based on an old novel) but the filmmakers really try to instil a sense of freshness in to the story. In some ways, seeing a New York City devoid of any life with moss and grass growing over known landmarks is quite eerie, and this is expertly demonstrated in the opening sequences of Will Smith driving through the city alone. Will Smith, much the same as Tom Hanks in "Cast Away", has to carry the film by and large on his own and does a remarkable job of holding your attention. He ain't the Fresh Prince here, and his performance is the stand-out quality in the film. Through him we get a character study of what might happen to any of us who are left alone for an extended period of time. A touching scene where he has to kill his dog when he becomes infected with the virus is quite effective and moving. This film makes a decent attempt to make the zombie flick epic and vast while telling a human story.

THE BAD: The tension of this film comes from the zombies - unfortunately, and for some very strange reason, the filmmakers decided to make every zombie (and all animals that appear apart from Will Smith's dog) computer generated. It totally kills any believability the film would have otherwise had. And it starts right from the beginning. Smith is hunting for deer, but the deer (which is CG) is attacked by a CG leopard and then a CG lion joins the party. The idea is right but it just doesn't look right. Will Smith believes it but the audience didn't. It gets worse when the zombies show up. At first, we see them in the shadows in a scary scene where Smith tries not to be caught out in a dark warehouse when searching for his dog. But when they appear for us to see, they are completely unbelievable and draw too much attention to the fact that they're CG. What happened to good old fashioned practical techniques which this film really should have used given the lack of screen time allocated to the zombies? When this element fails, the film starts to come undone, and you start to see how there isn't really much plot, leaving the film meandering through to the end. Smith is looking for a cure for the virus, but there isn't anything else really happening. He eventually meets another survivor but the story at this point starts to introduce some preachy elements which seem out of place. Story threads such as apparent intelligent behaviour by the zombies is introduced but never expanded. In the end it's a shame, there a lot of good things in the film but it ultimately can't rise above it's faults.

RATING: 6.5/10

Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net

Will Smith is a world class scientist and army official in I Am Legend. No, seriously. It's present day and the cure for cancer has just been released. It appears to be all smiles and sunshine for everybody in the world as the body's number one enemy has been eradicated. But those who handle and distribute the new vaccine are about to make a big mistake. Fast forward to three years later, and there is only one man left on earth. That man is Robert Neville (Will Smith), who somehow is still alive after the "KV Virus" spreads the globe killing everyone...or did it? Neville goes about his days hunting for deer, exercising, talking to mannequins, and searching for more survivors, all with the accompaniment of his dog Sam. But Neville keeps it in his best interest to lock himself indoors as the sun begins to set. For night is the time of the "dark seekers", creatures that used to be human, but were infected by the virus. When the sun goes down it is there time to feed, so it's best to keep your distance. When Neville is not talking to mannequins or cruising around in his probably stolen Shelby GT500, he is in his laboratory working continuously searching for a cure, so that he can save those who have been infected. It is up to him to try and restore civilization to its former self.

Will Smith is pretty much forced to take the reins in I Am Legend, considering he is supposed to be the last person alive. Although Smith is a good actor, he is not a great actor. When you are going to make a film where your main character is essentially the only character, you MUST have a great actor to fill the time. Tom Hanks did it in Cast Away, and John Cusack was able to do it in 1408 (<--review coming eventually), but Smith was not able to accomplish it here. His performance was not all bad, as there were parts where I felt truly emotional as Smith started to lose composure after a tragic event. (I'm trying not to give too much away, but you could probably figure out what happens). Unfortunately, the emotional performance only takes up 10 minutes of the film, and the rest of the act is quite boring and plain to say the least.

One very positive thing to say about this film is the overall look of this post apocalyptic New York City. Through the opening of the movie, we are brought around the city where grasslands have overtook the streets and animals walk where humans used to reign. These effects are rendered very well, especially considering the director Francis Lawrence has only directed one film before, and his expertise lies mainly in music videos. But the visuals are not perfect, which is clearly evident in the effects used to generate the dark seekers. The infected people look flat out silly, and aren't very scary. It is also very clear that the makers used complete CGI to portray them. It really took me out of the film.

All in all, I Am Legend had A LOT of potential in being a great film, but failed in more than one aspect. Try again in another 25 years or so with a better actor, and it'll work. My rating (5/10)