Every once in a while, there is a movie that just makes every other movie feel insignificant simply because of it's subject matter. As if you've actually experienced something in real life, making entertainment for entertainments sake feel useless. As if something so tragic and yet so hopeful has happened to you in your own life, that it becomes more than a movie, meaning it sort of...makes you feel guilty if you look forward to another movie again.

I Am Legend, for me, is one of those movies.

"Legend" is an emotional film that is driven by Will Smith's performance, which was phenomenal, and I think it should most definitely get an Oscar nomination. He deserves it. It is not an action film. It's the tragic story of a man who lost everything, is alone, is going crazy, and is trying to find a cure. A movie like this isn't really about scary mutated creatures jumping out of the dark, though they do. It's more about a man's love for the human race and is struggle to stop something that mankind brought upon itself.

One thing I loved was that Smith's character, Robert, says "God didn't do this. We did." So many times in horrible situations we swear at the very idea of the existence of a God. Because would a God really let something like this happen if he loved us? But we never take a chance to look at things and realize...we did it. It's our fault. Another thing I loved was that, in the end, the movie reinforces the idea that God had a plan.

Another thing that I thought helped this movie feel more...real? was it's extreme lack of a score. Only in the flashback scenes do we really hear a score. Nearly everything is just the natural sounds all around. No music. And it's great, because it makes you feel like this is really happening, and there is really no emotional manipulation except whatever the images on screen make you feel.

This is a fantastic film and one of my favorite films of the year, if not my favorite period.

Amazing!

*****/*****

-Chris

If you liked it that much, you should check out the novel.

http://tinyurl.com/3877c8

And the first filmed version...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058700/

And the second...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067525/

and maybe even this wonderful ripoff from The Asylum

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1075746/

I just bought/watched The Omega Man not long ago, and I love the campiness of it.  Definitely not as deep as you describe I Am Legend to be, but good fun nonetheless, and the vampires are substituted for crazy albinos.

Shelton,

The book was brilliant.  Tho I haven't seen the movie, yet, it will be hard to surpass the book.  Try also reading various drafts of the script  (I'm sure you have). Omega Man was so much better on paper, imo.  The early Protosevich draft was brilliant.  I'm ambivalent about the 'move' to New York, but preview wise, it already surpasses any previous screen version.  Then again, in only one instance in my life that the film surpassed the book was "The Man Who Would Be King".  Other than that, never has a film matched the original material upon which it has been based.  Still, this I will go see.  

Don

I've been wanting to read the book for a while now.  I hear it's excellent.  Maybe I'll throw it on my Christmas list.  I did however read a chunk of the Prostervich script and an early draft of the Goldsman script so I kinda knew what was going on.

I saw the movie the night it came out.  It was definitely better than I expected but it's not on my top 10 movies of '07 list.  I give it a 7.5/10.

Kudos to Will Smith on this.  I personally think this is the best performance he's ever given.

I thought it was a little too CGI heavy.  And that kinda brought it down because the CGI looked pretty bad.  I've seen better CGI on made-for-TV movies.

I wonder if it was just my theatre but didn't the movie seem really loud?  It felt like the volume was turned up to 11.  Whenever there was a "jump scare" with like one of those nighseekers screeching as they jumped at the camera, I flinched because I thought I had just gone deaf.  Loud isn't scary, people!  

So all in all, the movie was definitely worth my 11.95$ and I'll probably pick it up on DVD.  

I wonder how this would of shaped up against that one they were going to make in the '90s.  Will Smith and Francis Lawrence VS Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ridlely Scott.  

I  thought the omega man was horrible, mostly cause Charlton Heston is an Awful actor.  I am Legend is actually good, It's more like Castaway, it is, for like 90% of the movie, just Will Smith and a dog, there are only like 3 big scenes with the vampires.  The opening shots are amazing and Emma Thompson has a nice small role, I was surprised to see her in this.

This is by far Will Smith's best performance, I wouldn't be surprised to see him get an Oscar Nomination, it is a very tough role and he pulls it off.

Quoted from The boy who could fly I  thought the omecga man was horrible, mostly cause Charlton Heston is an Awful ator.

Sacrilege!

Hey,

Hate to disagree but I only thought it was ok. Don't get me wrong, some stuff was really good, the visuals of the city for example. But overall I just felt it was kind of ehhh. A lot of it felt like the same old same old to me. And about the "depth" of the film, perhaps compared to popcorn action extravaganza it has a lot of ideas but really I don't think it stands out in that regard at all. Plus, the CGI work on the "Dark Seekers" was horrible, horrible, horrible.

I do agree with you about the score, or lack of one though. I thought that was really interesting. Although, I thought it was more about conveying the emptiness of the city, his aloneness.  Also, liked the Marley stuff.

I don't think this is even close to the best film of the year. Probably not even in my top ten.

If you want entertainment and ideas then I think you should see No Country, the best movie this year in my opinion.

sheepwalkre

The book was amazing and a milestone in the general horror genre. You can thank Richard Matheson for zombies. If George Romero hadn't read his book, NOTLD would never have been the same. I haven't bothered with the first two remakes but this one sounds promising as it sticks pretty close to the source material. I'll have to check it out when the crowds die down.

I kind of liked this film, aside from 2 details--

1-The CGI was downright TERRIBLE and over-used. Like made-for-TV terrible. And the fact that there is only one real live character (ex-including Sammy) during 3/4 of the movie did not help at all.

2-The lack of gore. I do not require gore to enjoy a movie, but there were instances here where red matter should've been spraying all over the place--yet I did not see so much as a drop of blood. It killed the realism for me (within the context of the film, of course) and the movie lost its edge quite a bit.

The film also isn't nearly as emotional as Chris Harris makes it out to be. Not even close.  But in a popcorn movie level, it works just fine. Nice balance of emotion and action. The Horror was somewhat lacking due to the fact that the main villians were computer animations with no imposing presence at all, but it was still enjoyable.

They messed up in several areas. This is one of those films where there is potential to be the perfect movie within its genre, but stupid mistakes water it down into a shell of what it could've been. Still, the end product was rather good regardless.  

I saw this on the IMAX tonight and really enjoyed it.

I actually wasn't at all expecting the zombies----did they have them in the previews?  I didn't notice.

Preceding the movie was the first six minutes of the new batman, and lets just say that I could have left after that and felt like I had a fulfilling movie-going experience.

I Am Legend is a film of incredible power in its opening minutes and as it goes on, unfortunately descends into mediocrity. It never gets bad, exactly, but nothing in the last hour ever comes close to the brilliance of the first half hour. It’s disappointing only because it could’ve been the next classic science-fiction film. Instead what we get is a good thriller. Not great, but good.

Director Francis Lawrence creates some genuinely breathtaking shots of ravaged New York in the year 2012. Cars are upturned, enormous skyscrapers are decaying, the streets are overgrown with shrubbery. Not only is there great imagination in the look of destroyed NY, but there is also good-writing in what Robert Neville (Will Smith’s character) does in it: he hits golf balls off the back of a Navy Aircraft Carrier, he races through the streets in a Roadster and he interacts (even flirts with) mannequins in a video store. This is the day-to-day life of the last man on earth and it is fascinating to watch, far more interesting than seeing Smith have big shoot outs with ineffectively-created digital zombies, or vampires, or whatever you want to call them.

The zombies (that’s what I’ll call them) are most effective in the film’s opening: we do not see them, but we hear them, and we feel their ominous presence. This was a wise decision on the part of the producers and director, great suspense is created in this sequence by not showing the zombies. What we see are simple, tension boosting tableaux’s: an empty staircase,  Neville curled up in his bathtub with his dog, hugging his machinegun. This is good filmmaking.

As the story progresses, however, I Am Legend loses some of its power largely, I think, due to the flashbacks. I understand their being in the film, but I wish they didn’t have to be. Taking us out of the present and into the past, which is flooded with cars and people and movement and noise, destroys the tension created by silence and returning to the present story was always kind of jarring, and not in a good way. This portion of the film could’ve been handled so much better. The zombies are also look laughable when they are finally revealed. They are neither disgusting nor menacing and it is a good thing that they only show up in two or three scenes after their big unveiling.

*** MAJOR SPOILERS ***

My other major complaint with I Am Legend is the way the final twenty-five minutes are dealt with. Two survivors, Anna and her son Ethan, are introduced into the story, which is fine. Unfortunately, this brings out something of a negative-side in Neville and makes his character a tad unsympathetic, such as the scene where Anna tells Neville of a colony of survivors in Vermont. He attacks it, telling her, no yelling at her, that it’s a bunch of crap: there are no other survivors. His attack is so brutal that I wanted her to slap him, storm off and leave him to rot alone in New York forever. Yes, I know he’s been on his own for three years, I get it, but that’s no excuse to be so forceful. She was only trying to help.

The film itself is also pretty short, barely crossing the 90 minute mark before the credits roll and it kind of hurts the climax. I wish there had been another ten minutes or so establishing the relationships between Neville, Anna and her son so that we better understand Neville’s sacrifice at the end. It didn’t pack quite the emotional punch that it could have, which is unfortunate. The discovery of the cure for the virus also seems pretty damn convenient.

*** END SPOILERS ***

But enough with my gripes. There is plenty to enjoy in I Am Legend. Will Smith in particular deserves high-praise for his performance. The entire movie is on his shoulders and he carries it well. Not exactly an Oscar-worthy performance, but it is definitely one of Smith’s best. He creates real laughs and real drama with nothing to act off of except his canine companion. This was the best relationship in the film. Not since Old Yeller has a dog made such an interesting character. For most of the film, it’s just Smith and the dog and there is an oddly amusing and interesting dynamic between the two of them. He cares for Sam, and Sam for him. I was completely taken in by it.

The cinematography was first rate (credit Lord of the Rings and King Kong DP Andrew Lesnie for that), James Newton Howard’s score is subtle and unobtrusive, creating the perfect tone when we do hear it, and also when it’s not even there.

Overall, I Am Legend is a good movie. It is required viewing for anyone who likes sci-fi horror, or is a fan of Will Smith. The craftsmanship and the performances are impeccable, the weakness of the film is in its storytelling, which at times drains itself of the power and tension created in the opening sequence. A good 7/10 should do it; it’s not going to win any Oscars and in twenty-five years no one is going to be calling it a seminal moment in movie history, but neither of those are reasons to stay away from it. I Am Legend is an entertaining, at times thrilling popcorn flick, but it could’ve been so much more.


Matt.

Just to clarify, the monsters were vampires, not zombies.  

Well vampires, zombies, still an enjoyable film.

Thanks for clearing that up, J.


Matt.

Well, technocally, if were going by just what we saw in the film, they're "Dark seekers", neither vampires or zombies, as they could be "cured" which means they technically are not dead so they aren't undead, so they aren't vampires or zombies.

We don't call albinos vampires because the sun burns them more easily.

In the book, they're vampires. They sleep during the day and Neville kills them by driving stakes through their hearts. Not sure about the movie though. Still, Matheson's "creatures" were a precursor to the modern day flesh eating zombie. I Am Legend was a major influence on NOTLD.