I Am Legend!

“NO! I AM! I AM!!”

SPOLIERS inside…

I was really impressed with this film and with Francis Lawrence. Although he did some really slick videos back in his day, HE was the main reason i never really had any hopes for this film. I didn’t HATE Constantine, but i felt the guy kinda dropped the ball on that film (starting with casting the ever-annoying shia in basically the same role he played in i, robot).

Here, he shows the kind of restraint from typical conventions i did not believe he had in him. What i like about this film is what the ghetto crowds will hate: it’s slow pace, it’s layering of reveals, and it’s anti-cliche flashback sequences.

SPOILERS AHEAD….
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Case in point – normally i would not care about anyone they would cast as Will Smith’s family. For whatever reason, i just wouldn’t care. I don’t think there’s ever been a Will Smith family member on screen i could care less about. Especially since they usually are real, actually Will Smith family members. And even though the casting of his daughter here is no exception, it all works somehow. It was all unsettling. The sound design was great. And i loved how you knew things were going to go sour, but then when they did it turned out slightly different then you expected. And how Francis cuts away the second before. Very cool. Like i said, an example of what i was NOT expecting from Lawrence.

NYC in this film is unreal. THIS is an example of how Digital Effects should be used more. Very amazing to see actual familiar sites in their future distressed state. Going in to this, i expected maybe one or two money shots of times square and the brooklyn bridge and the rest all shot in close ups or some Toronto back alley or something. But – WOW – every exterior location is a REAL NYC location digitally madeover and it was really quite amazing to look at the detail going on in the background throughout this film.

Usually, Will Smith walks a fine line of annoying me or not annoying me. I can honestly say, (despite his apparently contractual work out shot) i not only enjoyed him in this but think it’s his best film. I really felt something in this film. Sure, it takes a little of Castaway here and a little Signs there, but it didn’t bother me at all. Actually, i was surprised that i didn’t mind the theme i hated so much about Signs popping up in this toward the end. This might be what Eros does not like – and i can totally understand why. I guess all the depressing emotional angst that came before the end themes wore me out to the point where i was sold no matter what.

MY ONLY TWO CRITICISMS: Something i thought was going to happen didn’t. And i was upset that it did not. When the woman does not know Bob Marley, i thought that we would realize we are even more in the future than thought. It would have been cool to know that it was actually further along, and he just lost track over the years – that time lost meaning in this lonely world…
The way it is now, it’s kind of gay actually – her not knowing who Marley is is just sort of a lazy way to get him to tell us, the audience, some of Marley’s beliefs and such. Poop.

also, more importantly,

The end should play out exactly as it does. When the woman and the child arrive at the giant gate at the end, they exit their vehicle in awe that it is actually there. At first hesitant, the woman knocks and looks at the child.

CUT TO BLACK.

That would have given me a bigger chill, and i think it would have better served the themes of the ending of this film.