I am Legend

Orange Peel said:
6/10 at best. Really disappointed after seeing the trailer a week before the film. At only 91 minutes long it could have done with another 30 minutes filling in the blanks. Especially with the initial 'outbreak'. There was plenty of room to explore this area but it was rushed buy with some dodgy flash backs.

Its such a shame as I had high hopes for this :(
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Agree with that, had high hopes but felt let down.
 
One of the most understated sides of this story is main characters negation to the fact the "infected" actually had human feelings. We were supposed to draw our own conclusions from reaction of Alpha Dog to kidnapping of his missus, and then from Fred trap, but somehow it all got muddy and badly shown in the movie. Many people I spoke to thought Fred trap was not set by the infected, but Neville himself. Probably because the video rental scene, with Fred, was shown much earlier, only once, and everyone forgot about it. Showing it once more would definitely help - you know, just to underline that this was Neville's daily routine, that the video rental shop "crowd" were the only "people" he spoke to every day, so seeing Fred suddenly on the street was supposed to make you feel eeiry.
But then the story drops completely. We don't get to understand the infected were actually vampires, clever and thinking in their own way. It's almost as if the screenplay writter left and was replaced by someone who completely misunderstood the plot...

If the cure was his blood, then letting the infected byte him would turn them into humans. Well, thought Neville. In that case, why don't I just blow myself up. Wtf writes these things...
 
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SPOILERS

Here's my 2 cents and just to note I never read the book and infact just went in expecting a blockbuster action movie.

Overall the film was quite good right up until I realised that they were infact cornered in that basement and it was going to end right there. Will Smith was also very good in it, however, I felt there were some problems in the film.

As most people pointed out the pace was the biggest problem. The film started off well enough (well actually I wasn't too fond of the driving like a lunatic under scaffolding stuff, felt a bit too much Hollywood for my liking) but it just ended with very little warning. It's as if they suddenly run out of money and had to pack it in right there.

In terms of small plot holes, for a man who has been surviving in NY on his own for the last 3 years I found it very disappointing that he forgot for the duration of the entire day when he got rescued, that there might be blood on his porch that will attract some beasties. I mean fair enough he met some people for the first time in a while, but for a man that was always so careful (even when he was visiting the CD store) it just felt off to me as it was the first thing I thought of when he woke up after being rescued.

Also the rescue scene was rather vague, I would've expected a rather large turnout from the vampire side and some puny flares doing a very limited job of detering them. Then somehow a rather tall and heavy Smith who was probably very dazed in a vehicle that was upside down ended up in her car (seeing the size of her I very much doubt she'd be able to move him). They also seemed to have driven through NY to his house without attracting any of them that night.

I also wanted to see a lot more about how the infection spread apart from seeing a very small evacuation scene that was broken down in a lot of chunks.

Despite the fact that there were some indicators that Smith was losing his mind slowly there I still felt his reaction to the new arrivals was somewhat off.

The trap thing seems to be causing a lot of discussion as well. It would be quite a complicated job for some species that are meant to be very limited in their intelligence so I think I might actually go along with the theory that he set it (directory commentary should explain this better) and forgot about it

If that was the case, why did the main baddie of the film just happen to be in the right place at the right time?
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I'm guessing because Smith would set it somewhere where there is bound to be a big number of those vampires and they may not always stay in the same place all the time? Fred was probably placed there and his head moving might be explained by Will losing his mind (as alread mentioned there were some indicators of that). I suppose some of those things could've seen Smith visit the CD store and somehow passed the information on (indication that they are more intelligent than presumed and they may even have a chain of command/communication). Didn't Will say something like "the process of de-evolition is complete so maybe now that this happened they started to evolve again?

The infected dogs bit was a very Hollywood piece of cinema though. All of a sudden some special guy has 3 dogs that are on leashes then the beasts that are full of adrenaline can't jump through less than a foot of light and endure a little pain? Also I'm not very enlightened when it comes to medicine but I thought people can only survive for a couple of hours if they are upside down?

Oh and what's the crack with this God thing in the end? That woman wouldn't shut up about it and then there were references of it the end (you could clearly see a church when she walked through the gates).

Got to say I was awfuly sad when the dog died I will certainly give them credit for that. I'd probably give the film 7/10 due to Will Smith being good in it, but the film just feels like a wasted potential and could've been a lot better. Maybe we'll see a better directors version/alternative ending. So yeah while this was not a bad film at all I still felt extremely disappointed when I saw the credits

Wtf writes these things...
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Maybe this suffered from the writers protests hence the end :p
 
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I watched this tonight. It was an "ok" movie, a little different than normal movies of its kind. I liked that a lot of it was in daylight. It was painfully slow in parts yet fast over all. The story was good, but lacked any depth. The ended was just wrong!
 
fus said:
Also, 'I promised my friend that I would say hello to you', 'Please say hello to me'.

My god, I was choked up at that. If there are any doubts about Will's acting ability, that 2 minute section put them to rest in my opinion.
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Yeah that bit really got to me too, was so sad.

He really is an amazing actor
 
Saw it yesterday and not having read the book and therefore unaware of the drastic changes, I enjoyed it allot. Thing that really really annoys me though is right at the beginning, yet again in an american movie it is somebody BRITISH who has caused all the problems. You can imagine the scene at the screenplay review. "We need a character will boast about creating a cure for cancer but will ultimately cause the almost total eradication of the human race, in other words, be the baddie. Shall we cast an american actor for this role?.......nah" This happens time after time in recent holywood films it seems to me but it really does stick out like a sore thumb in this film, I mean the character was on screen for all of 1 minute and yet they still had to shift the blame for anything bad in the world onto anyone but themselves, and in most cases it ends up being us, cos we are all evil and sinister with funny accents. Just my 2p.
 
I saw this film with no expectations of it being an amazing movie and having no knowledge of the book, and for that reason i thought it was great. In my opinion most films with Will Smith in are generally good and his performance was top notch. I was on the edge of my seat most of the time.

@von - I dont think its hard to realise that the main infected person was pretty annoyed with the fact that Will nicked his missus along with loads of other previous captives that he failed to cure (hence the photos on the wall near the end), hence why he was willing to show his face in daylight.

In my opinion it was obvious the trap was set by him and they moved Fred on purpose to attract Wills attention.

@neoboy - Wheres the reference to blood on his porch? It was the fact that they were followed in the night that the infected knew where they were.

And seeming as though he hasn't seen a living soul in 3 years along with the death of his dog, i would let him off wouldn't you?

Sorry if it seems i am attacking you both, but i dont really understand your comments thats all.

I guess my only complaints could be the cgi baddies, and the abrubt ending but overall its worth a watch.
 
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Yup, they were definately followed at night causing the house assualt. When the chika saved Neville, and they were driving away, she asked where he lived and he mumbled something along the lines of 'we cant go home till dawn else they'll follow us'

At least i'm pretty sure i heard that :D
 
IMO Will Smith played the role well, I just feel the storyline was a little limp in places. I too had thought the 'Fred' trap was just one of his that he had forgotten about as you could see him going a little crazy at times... It probably didn't help that the trap was set in a similar fashion to the one he set himself to catch one of the infected.
The film was also painfully slow in places. Oh and yes he did say that they cannot go home til dawn when was being rescued..
 
StuntMonkeh said:
IMO Will Smith played the role well, I just feel the storyline was a little limp in places. I too had thought the 'Fred' trap was just one of his that he had forgotten about as you could see him going a little crazy at times... It probably didn't help that the trap was set in a similar fashion to the one he set himself to catch one of the infected.
The film was also painfully slow in places. Oh and yes he did say that they cannot go home til dawn when was being rescued..
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But I think thats one of the things that lead me to believe that the 'vampires' set up the trap by using the knowledge of how it worked (at a simple level) and what it did...

Intelligence is a difficult thing to quantify, and its been shown in the animal kingdom that they can have command structures with alpha males/females and have rudimentary learning skills (well compared to us) when faced with a non-standard challenge. The vampires could have just copied the design, as they have seen it in action and understand what it does (potentially get them food easily - this could mean deer or Robert). Since 'Bill' was the bait, I cant see it being for no one else other than Robert...

Robert wouldnt have placed that trap there as there was no black cloth to protect the victim from the Sun and its obvious that he waits for it to be snared, using fresh blood as the bait in a darkened area...

My thoughts on the film have been already well voiced - its hard not to compare it to the book, but as a standalone film it could have easily been so much better - the pacing would make any would-be director/writer cringe - I lay that blame solely on the length of the edit and not any potential money problems...

I also think when the head 'vampire' put his face in the Sun the conclusion Robert arrived at was just mis-calculated since its goes against instinct to hurt oneself, perhaps to infer his impaired reasoning due to his own 'madness' caused by perpetual loneliness...

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
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Saw this last night and was **** scared. Boyf liked it though.

My question is why wasn't there ever any Zombie carcasses... ANY at all?!

WS is a brilliant actor and the poor doggie :(

BB x
 
BrightonBelle said:
My question is why wasn't there ever any Zombie carcasses... ANY at all?!
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I think they burn up in the light.

WS seems to be the same character to me no matter who he plays. He was better in MIB tbh.

The movie was entertaining but seemed to leave too much unexplained. It seemed more aimed at getting the star actor on the screen than it was trying to tell the story.
 
banja said:
Not bad. The Dog was the best character in it though.
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The girlfriend was ready to burst into tears about the dog... Although she liked WS getting semi naked too..

A good fun film, although there's a limit of how much they can do in the time thus it had enough in there to make sense.

Reading His Dark Materials shows The Golden Compass has some large gaps in explanation right at the start...
 
brocksta said:
@Neoboy - Wheres the reference to blood on his porch? It was the fact that they were followed in the night that the infected knew where they were.

And seeming as though he hasn't seen a living soul in 3 years along with the death of his dog, i would let him off wouldn't you?

Sorry if it seems i am attacking you both, but i dont really understand your comments thats all.
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Not at all, we're discussing a film here. Come to think of it there was no blood on the porch reference, Anna simply said that he was still bleeding and there was light on the horizon when she brought him in. That's probably where I got the idea of blood attracting them from.
 
I didn't enjoy it. I thought it was a poor mans "28 Days later". Very similar concept, only minus the plot elements. A shame really, I was hoping to like this film. Sadly I found it largely boring. Particularly the very protracted scene involving his dog.

I saw that scene coming a mile off. What I didn't see coming is that it would take up at least a 5th of the movie.
 
seek said:
I didn't enjoy it. I thought it was a poor mans "28 Days later". Very similar concept, only minus the plot elements. A shame really, I was hoping to like this film. Sadly I found it largely boring. Particularly the very protracted scene involving his dog.

I saw that scene coming a mile off. What I didn't see coming is that it would take up at least a 5th of the movie.
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is that 5 threads now then?;)
 
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