morwen | (no subject)

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Went to see I Am Legend last night with

timeplease. This is another playing-it-straight zombie movie, and apparently not bearing very much resemblance to the source material.

Not sure what to make of it. I liked the details (Neville's competence at surviving - lots of cool little details there - versus his increasingly deranged state; the deserted New York; the flashbacks to the evacuation), but not the film as a whole. In particular, it would have been a better film without the last scene, leaving it more ambiguous.

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Chopping out all the melodrama would have helped. But melodrama was the main point, so maybe not.

For some reason Hollywood don't make bleak, depressing special effects films starring Will Smith.

Could drop Will Smith to make room for longer bleak scenery shots? *looks hopeful*

Would we keep the dog? We need a lead, after all.

Ow.

Strangely when I wrote that, I was not consciously aware that it was a bad pun. However, I can think of no other reason for writing it. It's as if my pun generator had been hardwired directly to my fingers without involving my brain.

cultural imperative, me thinks.

Warners have apparently bought the rights to a sequel. Not that there is a sequel to the book so how exactly they buy such rights I don't know.
The whole point of the book is the twist to the ending, not a sixth sense type twist that's been done before but an entire twist on perspective. It could only be done as the original storyline in a lower budget art house flick as it just wouldn't sell to mainstream audiences. I'd like to watch the Vincent Price version which was the first attempt.

I find it makes more sense to think of it as a remake of the Charlton Heston version (which also dumped that aspect of the book) not as an adaptation of the original - it's moved too far from that, really.

One significant variance is it omitting the "still living" entirely (it hints toward a slightly smarter leader zombie, mind), found in the book and both the other movies. I would not have been surprised to find this was just a generic zombie virus script given trappings of a book (as Smith's earlier film I, Robot, was), but apparently this is not so.

The first half or so was the best surviving-in-a-desolate-post-crash-world film I've seen, bar none, modulo a couple of stupid errors. The last third... less said the better.

We decided the lions were implausible in New York - although they might have been plausible in Los Angeles where an earlier version of the screenplay was set in. What else did we miss?

Edited 2008-01-08 15:00 (UTC)

Twice (at least), we see him bolting up the windows, closing the shutters, etc etc - he's clearly alone in the house but for the dog. He ends up going to sleep curled in the bottom of the bath; dreams start.

Twice he wakes up, in bed, with light streaming in. He's somehow got from one to the other, and opened up the windows...

(As for the lions, eh, I'll give them that silliness on points :-) Burroughs used it for a deserted London, after all, so it has tradition behind it...)

Hmm. I don't think I noticed that. Editing can often result in that sort of continuity error - maybe there was a bit between those they took out.

pretty much sums up my impression. ruins of NY and explody bridges pretty!

i want to see. the trailers look good, but yeah, i was doubtful they could do a decent ending, even without knowing the book. how scary would i find it though? (gore is ok, spooky is not-ok)

Violence was relatively tame. I can see how some of the deserted-NY shots could be thought to be a bit creepy, but those were shot in a matter-of-fact way rather than for suspense.

The time he goes into the dark building, before you actually see anything? That was pretty creepy.

I assumed the lions were zoo escapees, cf Pride of baghdad.

Mostly I was miffed at the "ooh, pesky scientists have destroyed the world again" aspect, especially the "there is no god, there are no more survivors... waitaminute! There *are* survivors! Hey, maybe there's a god too" schtick.

Yeahbut, they then managed to survive three Manhattan winters?

Although I wasn't keen on anything after Anna turned up, the final Vermont scene really took the biscuit.

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