So I saw I Am Legend Last Night (Spoilers)

[Mozenrath]

shannonfans said:

thwak said:

I read the novel again before I saw it in imax yesterday (how odd we both saw it on the same night).

I will say that I liked the book more then the movie. I think the book brought up ideas that were more important then the movie did and the ending in the movie seemed WAAAAAY too happy of an ending that seemed like something hollywood would do.

BTW I'm sorry for that long run on sentence. I hope you can comprehend what I was trying to say.

Yeah, I've noticed that books tend to be better than the movies. I guess maybe it's easier to get lost in a book, to imagine all these insane scenarios. As opposed to the movie, where everything is already picked out and you have to go along with it.

I haven't read the novel, but I bet I would enjoy it more. I love books.

That's a good point.

I loved the movie, myself. First time in YEARS I actually got lost in an "action" movie of sorts, I like zombie flicks, andit was actually legitimately scary.

The scene where they are first revealed, huddled together in the dark, breathing so rapidly, was legitimately scary. I have no problem telling you it freaked me out.

For some reason, the head Dark Seeker reminded me of Crispin Glover.

[Deleted]

my favourite movie i saw this year.

[BRV]

Sorry to bump this up, but I just saw it last night and feel the need to put in my two cents.

I'll agree with the world in saying that the first 3/4 of the film was phenomenal, but it fell flat on its face in the final 1/4. Pretty much right after the woman and child were introduced was when the movie lost its luster. I mean, I get that Will Smith isn't "the last person on planet earth", but I feel that the movie would've been a lot creepier and significantly more unsettling if, after the death of Sam, it was him against the world.

I wish there was more of a storyline behind the three year gap between when they quarantined New York City and when they picked up at the beginning of the movie. I feel like that would've been a great story to tell, showing Will Smith how society around him started to break down and how he became the last person in the city. Even if its a brief 10 or 15 minute explanation, I would've taken it.

And I understand how some people didn't like the scene where Will Smith is reciting Shrek word-for-word, but I thought it was one of the deepest scenes in the movie. It showed how far Will Smith's character had fallen into madness, and it just explained how much time he had on his hands, that he managed to memorize an entire movie, showing the lonliness that he must have felt.

Also, and I think I'm going waaaaaay too deep into it, but the scene in Shrek they showed was perfectly chosen. It was basically Shrek's introduction to Donkey, and how he just met him and didn't want to help him out, and how Shrek was more comfortable being a loner, but ultimately he decided to help. I think that was a way to explain how Will Smith felt about the woman and kid introduced into his life. He'd been alone for almost three full years, and now someone comes into his life and expects him to up and leave and "find more people".

I felt the ending was a bit of a cop-out, and that it was very rushed, but whatever. Nothing's perfect. I would've loved to have seen this movie get another 45 minutes or so for a few scenes here and there, but ya can't win 'em all.

SIDE NOTE: My buddies and I were joking about this later in the day: How much of a piece of shit do you think that woman in the open felt? I mean, she finds the cure for cancer, and it destroys humanity and turns everyone into vampire-zombies. If that isn't the biggest "Whoops!" in history, I don't know what is. What an absolute 180 that must've been like for her.

Overall rating: I'll give it a solid B grade.

[Near Fantastica]

Saw this last night with the girlfriend. Neither of us were too pumped about it, however all we'd heard was that a virus had wiped people out and Will Smith was the only person left and that he was alone on screen most of the time. WOW(!) we both though, this could be interesting, and it was. New York looked very bizarre and it was interesting to see him alone. I love movies that have famous locations completely empty, it always looks incredible.

This movie had the potential to be good, really good. It had the potential to be something different. It had the potential to be different, to stand out from the rest of the Hollywood crap, but...it failed.

The premise seemed good. The first...twenty minutes to half hour were really interesting. He had set up mannequins and spoke to them every day, he'd talk to the dog, he had to go out hunting for food and such, and if the whole movie had been Smith alone, it would've been very interesting. The girl and I were both saying how strange and amazing it'd be to watch a movie with just ONE actor, and one person who is left alive in the world, what they would do and how they would do it. THAT would've been a good movie. Would Hollywood surprise us?!!?

NO. It's a big f'in NO. Thirty minutes into the film, Smith chases deer and Sam follows it into a dark building. Why is Smith so worried I wondered? That scene was good though, until, he turns and sees four....creatures masturbating in the corner. "Oh Christ" was all I could say. The moment I lost my twelve bucks was when the first creature leaped at Smith with superhuman abilities and he shot at it. Damn. What a shame. Hollywood did it again. I realise it's based on a book, but you can easily change books when you're writing the screenplay, you can make a decent vampire/zombie/monster movie if you do it right and don't have CGI monsters jumping twelve feet into the air.

Speaking of CGI, CGI ruins movies. Why do they keep insisting on using CGI when it simply looks terrible? Jurassic Park still looks incredible and that was made in '93 before the boom of CGI. A lot of it was robotics and it looks amazing still to this day. The first thing I rolled my eyes at were the awful looking lions killed the deer. Terrible. However, I laughed out loud, both of us did when we see the monster properly for the first time at the door of that warehouse, screaming and burning. It looked AWFUL. It looked terrible. How could they have possibly watched that back and thought, "sweet, it looks great". They could've saved so much money and kept some realism to the movie by simply putting an actor or stuntman in some make-up. They're very capable and make-up these days can be amazing (Tom Savini etc.). They went cheap and relied on CGI. Terrible choice, and ruined the movie for me. The dogs looked terrible, the monsters looked terrible and I made fun of the movie for the rest of the time after they were introduced.

Smith was good. I really enjoyed his time alone on screen and I think he keeps getting better and better as an actor. It's just a shame that awful CGI and typical Hollywood explosions ruined what could've been something different. That big budget, closing down New York...all for this? Shame.

[Mozenrath]

gladiusofrome said:

evilmasterbetty said:

I think it was more of Smith's character having nothing to live for. He saw his wife and child die. He had to kill the only companion he had. The only thing keeping him going was to find the cure, which he did. I don't think he wanted to go on.

Yea, but how do we know the people succeed in curing everyone? That's why im so mad, along with Smith dying. Is there gonna even be a sequel? It just can't end like that.

What if she has AIDS? Then they have a cure, but they have to cure AIDS that much sooner.

[kittylimits]

Smith made the movie enjoyable.

I never cried as hard as I did during that movie when Sam died. SERIOUSLY. I wanna cry right now thinking about it. SOOOO emotional and sad. The poor puppy I was so scared the second they caught him in that trap that something like that was going to happen..I thought he was going to have to watch his dog die right before his eyes while hanging

[willywonka666]

kittylimits said:

Smith made the movie enjoyable.

I never cried as hard as I did during that movie when Sam died. SERIOUSLY. I wanna cry right now thinking about it. SOOOO emotional and sad. The poor puppy I was so scared the second they caught him in that trap that something like that was going to happen..I thought he was going to have to watch his dog die right before his eyes while hanging

I hate to see animals suffering, but I knew as soon as I saw him, there was a 99.9% chance he'd get killed at some point.

[Deleted]

Honestly, I thought this was a pretty decent movie. The part that really had the audience at the edges of their seats (when I went, at least) was when Smith had to get back into the car with a bad leg before the head mutant released the dogs on him. And yeah, the part where Sam gets put down made my eyes watery. I'm a dog person, so it really got to me.

I liked how they had little things you can notice if you watched carefully, like how the crawl at the bottom of the news report saying that O'Neill was retiring after the 2010 season, and that talks in the middle east continued. One thing that REALLY stood was the billboard at Times Square for the Batman/Superman movie. 05/15/10 I think was the release date.

Oh, and to correct something The BRV said, the part with Shrek wasn't when Shrek decides to help Donkey, it was the part when Shrek argues about how Fiona and Donkey made fun of him behind his back, not knowing they weren't talking about him.