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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

I Am Legend

Gavin Greenwalt

Gavin Greenwalt

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Just saw I Am Legend. Loved it. Vampire CG was a bit iffy but other wise stellar, wonderful, enthralling movie. I'll try to give my impressions without spoiling... ok this'll be tricky. I think most people who didn't like it skimmed over a lot of the subtext which is ok since the ending did play down the moral ambiguity to the point of extinguishing it if taken at face value in the last--I dont' know... 120 seconds. I know how I wanted it to end and it ended exactly the opposite but I think the 'expressed' ending was a bit of revisionism on what was actually going on.

How to say this without giving anything away... I feel like the narrator was wrong. And the narrator's wrongness only further contributed to the irony. Audiences always expect the narrator to be right (They're the Narrator after all they must know what's going!) but what actually happened at the end wasn't the same as the narrator understood it.

In short: if you believe the narrator--it's a shallow, slightly above average suspense/action flick. If you don't, then it's a dark and wonderfully twisted tale dripping in irony.

There how is that for the most cryptic review in history? :)
 
I thought it was good. Will Smith's performance was superior, and coming from someone who isn't the biggest fan, that's saying a lot. The CG cityscapes were phenomenal. The vampires were just mediocre by today's standards, however, and considering that they are the primary conflict... well, if you can't buy into the tension then you've got a pretty big hole. I also thought the supporting actors (minus the dog) were pretty weak as well, though their screen time is minimal so it's not as big a flaw. It was nice to see an ending that isn't some completely unbelievable farce or unnecessary twist, though it was a bit bland and linear.

Overall it was pretty fun and worth a watch, but I wouldn't put it near my classics bin...
 
If there were an animal oscar awards held once a decade I would give best performance to Sam.

I think the vampires' cg served their purpose until they needed to act. The first encounter was perfectly executed imo. The further through the movie you get the weaker they become. A really really wanted to empathize with them while hating them (after all they used to be human) but I had to rely completely on Will Smith for that queue since the animation direction was so weak. (My only real complaint with the director). I think I know how we were supposed to react at the end, but without Will Smith's (excellent) performance helping me out I felt nothing for them. There needed to be a hand off where the audience was able to care about them without Will Smith's support.
 
I must confess that I don't see the dark irony. It seems to be a flick mass-marketed as an action movie, so it doesn't make sense that the studio would see this as a good place for extremely subtle dark irony. Although the last 5 minutes feel awkward (well, actually, the last 50 minutes are a little awkward, but the last 5 in particular) are strange, but more in a "War of the Worlds" way than a hyper-subtle ironic way.

For more thoughts on I Am Legend, check out this blog that I read:
http://www.purplestateofmind.com/john/blog/?p=48
 
I really liked how the aliens had their spaceships blown up at the end, even though they destroyed the White House. Tommy Lee Jones was a really good sidekick as well.
 
Brilliant trailer using Mansell's Death is the Road to Awe. I knew someone was gonna do it! :)
 
Tom said:
Brilliant trailer using Mansell's Death is the Road to Awe. I knew someone was gonna do it! :)
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Me too. Makes me want to watch the Fountain again. I loved Legend. Had some issues, but I'll discuss later as they are spoiler intensive.
 
Ruairi Robinson said:
Funny you should say that, considering the original novel had my favourite ending of all time.
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Don't waste your time, watch the original and still the best version to date starring Vincent Price......."The Last Man on Earth". :holloween:

Great film.

This one definitely went south IMO.
 
im.thatoneguy said:
I feel like the narrator was wrong. And the narrator's wrongness only further contributed to the irony. Audiences always expect the narrator to be right (They're the Narrator after all they must know what's going!) but what actually happened at the end wasn't the same as the narrator understood it.
Click to expand...
Potential SPOILER alert . . .
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I think the ending was the problem, not the "narrator". Joe Pesci's narration in Casino worked because the ending worked. More of a POV thing (as recorded on his MAC).

Oh, and there were some pretty egregious focus problems at some points. Kinda annoying.
 
vampires or zombies? I couldn't tell. Were they too smart or too dumb? I couldn't tell. Over all I enjoyed my stay at the local popcorn vender, but hoped for much more from this long anticipated release. Oh well Maybe someone will step up with the cahoona's to make it right next time.

Saw the mist on Friday. That was a cool flick. Maybe I liked it better because I had no expectations going in.

Alvin and the chipmunks was pretty high on my list this week as well. Maybe because my kids were laughing so hard I thought they were all three going to wet themselves. My six year old fell off his chair and was rolling on the ground.

love peace chicken grease
 
It sucked. Great idea watered down and played safe. A Disney take on 28 Days Later. Very one dimensional characters as well. This a perfect example of a script that spends 9 years in the ranks of a studio until perhaps even the lawyer has a draft and then they pull the trigger.
 
I loved the beginning, the to lead actors Big Willie and the dog gave academy worth performances.

Then it all went down the toilet.
I think the let Will Smith down on this one, if they had remained with a distopic vision, instead of the predictable attempt at hopefulness that Oscar could have been waiting for him.


spoiler...

I think there was something to be explored there with the female vampire he had captured. What would have happened if she began to recover some semblance of humanity through his cure?
They could have set us up for a happy ending... and then had her reject that humanity (him), off him and return to her hive/family.
 
Ok I'm ready to write up my spoiler heavy review.

Here is what I thought was going to happen and didn't happen at all. I didn't realize that if he was bit he wouldn't become a vampire. I was really really really hoping that he would get bitten near the end of the movie and become a vampire and then discover that everybody was actually ok but just unintelligible.

Now while this is what I had hoped would happen it's not what I thought actually happened.

If you listen to Joe the entire movie he's dead wrong. About just about everything. His observations on the vampires were wrong. They weren't purely animalistic instincts, there was a culture developing and they were clearly able to develop high level intelligence. Even when the head of the hive loses his mate he attributes it to hunger.

While all the vampires were very "bitey" they weren't towards each other. The only way vampires were dangerous is if you weren't a vampire. But that's true of just about any predator. If you're a seal a shark is pretty threatening. If you're a fish a seal is pretty threatening. Just because a super-predator is more effective than humanity doesn't mean it's inherently more evil. And that's where I thought they dropped the ball at the end. While they were hinting strongly at the intelligence and ongoing development of the vampires (emotional reactions, setting traps, etc etc) the desperation and revenge motive led to them becoming straight up monsters in the last scene of the film. Severely undermining the ongoing indications that they were actually the good guys.

The real cold blooded killer in the film was Joe. He of course had to die for his sins that much was evident.

So to answer the question posed earlier I think the dark irony was that Joe created a super race and then failing to see what he had done and accept the way things were became the real monster hunting and murdering vampires.

However if you listen to what's her name at the end Joe would be viewed as a hero and savior. Even though he's responsible for destroying the human race... and then destroying a second race. And I feel like the fact that the film ended with him being the savior even though he clearly wasn't was just a whole 'nother level of satire and commentary. Even as they were about to commit genocide they still didn't realize what they were doing.

-- So in conclusion I don't know if I connected more dots than were intended to be connected and loved it because I thought the vampires were intelligent and developing. But completely accept the viewpoint that Joe was just a superhero saving the human race from mindless fast zombies and that the movie was pretty lame. In the end it comes down to how intelligent you thought the vampires were and if they deserved to exist.
 
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