I Am Legend Movie Review
Movies December 14th. 2007, 1:40pm
Went in with grandiose expectations, and most of them were met. Didn’t read one review (thanks for sending them, though), but quickly saw the critics’ grades on Yahoo, which were in the B-C range. Like Frank Costanza, we like to go in fresh. Fresh!
You should also know we like any and all END OF DAYS movies, so stuff you probably hated (Day after Tomorrow, Independence Day, etc), we enjoyed (but in a different way than, say, The Departed). At any rate, on the END OF DAYS scale, this movie is a 10. There was a tense vibe to virtually the entire film, and the action was solid. Thought-provoking? Not so much (shock!).
We won’t do spoilers, but Will Smith probably has 3-4 cheesy annoying moments you wish they would have cut. Bob Marley fans will be pleased. At the end of the film, one person in the packed cinema booed; two others (not seated together) clapped. We exited and immediately began to wonder what to shove in our “go-bag” and how we could “safe-up” our dwelling, you know, should this kind of thing scenario actually unfold.
To wrap up today’s movie coverage, a reader sent in the first five minutes of Cloverfield, which will be our movie obsession for January.
18 Responses to “I Am Legend Movie Review”
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December 14th, 2007 at 1:45 PM
Would never see this movie, but thoroughly enjoyed this article about filming it in NYC:
December 14th, 2007 at 1:48 PM
TBL if you like apocalyptic stuff, I highly recommend “The Road”. The author’s name escapes me right now, but it was a great book.
December 14th, 2007 at 2:24 PM
At least give us this spoiler….does the dog make it through the movie OK?
December 14th, 2007 at 2:32 PM
go bag and safe up? did they just take mathesons book and say fuck it, we’re turning it into the zombie survival guide? granted that book should be made into a movie too but come on
December 14th, 2007 at 2:33 PM
The book was awesome. I hate to be “that guy”, but it’s true.
December 14th, 2007 at 2:51 PM
@pki: “The road is by Cormac McCarthy. Very depressing, but an excellent story.
December 14th, 2007 at 3:15 PM
I wouldn’t be recommnding too much Cormac to TBL. He didn’t like No Country for Old Men (the movie) which followed the book closely. And by the way I finally saw No Country and the end was bad ass and completely appropriate.
December 14th, 2007 at 3:33 PM
Ritty – ACtually, LOVED the first 90 minutes of No Country.
December 14th, 2007 at 3:40 PM
That’s right TBL I remembered you saying that, but I just think it had to end that way and likely makes more sense if you’ve read the book…not that it wasn’t the same as in the movie, but when you are hearing Tommy Lee Jones talk instead of reading it in a book, some of it just gets lost in translation I guess. But yeah, the first 90 minutes was quietly the most intense and scary (in an intense sort of way) movies I’ve seen in a while…something I don’t think Will Smith will be able to equal in my book.
December 14th, 2007 at 3:52 PM
Don’t want to rehash that ‘argument’ … but my beef was (assuming everyone has seen it now) primarily with
a) how they killed off Josh Brolin. The entire movie was built up as Brolin vs. the killer and they have a great chase … awesome action … and next thing you know, they just kill off Brolin and don’t even show it.
b) the movie was hyped, through previews, as killers chasing one another. I thought it was that for 90 minutes, and then completely veered away. Just felt disappointed, i guess.
c) End did feel Sopranos-like, although many disagree with that.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:05 PM
I agree with your contention if you got sucked in by the previews, but my point, and I think the point that is more clearly revealed in the book, is that the main character is Tommy Lee Jones. “No Country For Old Men” –> Tommy Lee is old. Josh Brolin was just a conduit to get to Tommy Lee retiring. It was his last chase because he doesn’t understand the “country” anymore. Plus if the movie were to stay true to the “preview” perspective then Brolin should have been killed by Chigurh and not a bunch of Mexicans. And the end was more than the Sopranos because at least Tommy Lee summed up via his dream that he was going to die soon and his Dad would be waiting on him.
December 14th, 2007 at 5:16 PM
TBL,
Did you by chance see the new trailer for the dark knight?
December 14th, 2007 at 10:11 PM
I saw that trailer: it doesn’t look bad. Ledger’s joker voice sounds pretty good, in fact. I didn’t get a clear picture of how they were going to do that character, though. I don’t think they’d be stupid enough to make it anything like the Nicholson Joker, but how do you depart from that significantly yet keep it the same character? Whatever.
I Am Legend sucked. It was like they ran out of money and had to wrap up the movie in this crazy 5 minute denouement that came out of nowhere. Outside of the obvious coolness of an empty and overgrown NYC, there wasn’t much interesting. Will Smith was fine, but he didn’t have much to work with.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:13 PM
Matt – agree that the ending felt quick. I think the problem with all of these end of days movies is that it’s impossible to find an ending. I’ll take the one from Legend than the Tom Cruise one from last summer. That was terrible.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:14 PM
Dark Knight trailer looked good. Darker than the first. There was a better trailer – 21. Kate Bosworth and gambling and Vegas. Looks fantastic.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:43 PM
Yeah, I certainly don’t think it’s crazy that people would like the movie–I liked quite a bit of it. I was just a bit taken aback by how quickly it ended. So many movies today are annoyingly long; it’s odd to find myself wishing there was another half hour or so. I also thought that it didn’t really create an emotional attachment to Will Smith’s character. We were supposed to be rooting for him, but I was really just rooting for the dog. I didn’t feel anything at the end, and the final scene was just weird and derivative of other movies and involved characters that I didn’t know well enough to care either.
I always love the first hour of movies like this one–where you get those awesome shots of familiar environments in really unfamiliar conditions (overgrown and empty NYC, empty London in 28 Days Later, Chaos of people going nuts at the beginning of zombie flicks, etc.). Soon enough, though, it has to settle into being an actual movie, and that’s apparently the hardest part to pull off.
I almost didn’t need a plot to this movie. I would have loved a huge string of scenes showing how he attempted to live his life. Leave the “haven’t I seen these guys in 100 movies before”-bad guys out of it.
December 14th, 2007 at 11:32 PM
You guys should see Omega Man with Charlton Heston. It was the first movie adaptation of I Am Legend. It’s hilarious. Early 1970s. The bad guys in that version are anything but ones you’ve seen in other movies. It’s a shame the new version’s getting so heavily panned. I was excited about it because it’s such an innaresting story/has such potential to be an incredible movie if done the right way. Now I’m leaning toward waiting for DVD,
One more thing, if you like Cormac McCarthy and haven’t read Blood Meridian you must. It is the single greatest work of literature of the 20th century and it is, simply put, badass. They keep threatening to make a movie of it. Last I heard Ridley Scott was to direct. Here’s hoping anyone but Ridley Scott directs it. Not thinking he’s up for this challenge.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:23 AM
I really don’t know what to think about this movie. It was hyped up a lot, and then when it actually came out…well it seems like not of all it was justified. Mind you, I haven’t seen it, but from what I heard from one of my rational movie watching friends–you know, the one in the group that won’t review it by screaming “ZOMBIES!!! OMFG!!!–the ending is a bit weak and the religious tones at the end are rather forced. In other words, good, but coulda been better seems to be the opinion I’m hearing.