I AM LEGEND March 2, 2008
Posted by ghostof82 in : Film General , trackbackFunny thing about hype and movies- very often moviegoers are suckered in on opening weekend, fooled by millions of dollars of marketing hype into paying money to watch a turkey. We’ve all been there. But very often the opposite can also prove true- negative word about a film can lower your expectations to such a degree that you end up pleasantly surprised.
This is what has happened to me with I AM LEGEND; after being turned off by the casting of Will Smith (I like Will, he’s a good actor but his rep has been sullied by too many Holllywood ‘blockbusters’ for my liking) early word was negative and reviews poor. I thought I’d put it off to a DVD rental in the Spring but recently watched it anyway, as I’d started to hear word that it wasn’t all that bad.
Well I have to say I was really impressed by it- I thought it was a superior ‘blockbuster’, with an intimate and effective first act with the kind of CGI effects that do all the right things… flawless cityscapes that boggle the mind and really fool you. Of course the film performs a Jekyll and Hyde with the second half with the CGI Vampires demonstrating all that can be bad about CGI in movies, but I’d been warned about the CGI creatures and found them less annoying than I had feared. I was thinking, in the film’s first half, though, just how powerful CGI effects can be when it serves the film without resorting to being too flashy and distracting.
In truth though I thought the most impressive thing about the film was Will Smith- the scene where he breaks down in a video rental store, pleading for a shop mannequin to talk to him, was so at odds with what you would expect from a Hollywood action hero. I was also impressed in the early scene where he follows his dog into a darkened apartment store building, and is decidedly terrified as he plunges deeper into the darkness- hardly your typical action hero. It’s a pity the second half of the film couldn’t live up to what the first half promised. It is certainly unusual to see such a big brash genre blockbuster turn out to be such a quiet, studied film about isolation at the End Of The World.. at least until it mutates into typical big brash genre fare at the end. It’s as if the films producers panicked at spending $150 million on a study of despair and isolation and needed a get-out-of-jail-free card (and bought it from the guy who did THE MUMMY movies).
There is an alterantive ending for the film that will be featured on the DVD release. The ending is described in an issue of Cinefex but I won’t reveal it here, suffice to say though I don’t think its really any better than what the film’s final version was. Will be fascinating to see it though to be sure- the wonders of DVD! Perhaps the day will come when two versions of the same film will be shown in cinemas- you get to choose which screen you go to depending on what kind of endings you like on your films, happy/sad/conclusive/open-ended.
I must make comment on the fantastic soundtrack by James Newton Howard, it is a beautiful, sorrowful score that has a very restrained use in the film but is all the more effective for it. Howard is increasingly busy in Hollywood. His music is certainly a fresh change from hearing Hans Zimmer muzak all the time- I have no dislike for Zimmer but his music has, for me, reached saturation-point for me in movies. It’s as if movie producers only temp-track films in progress with his music to the exclusion of all else. Has the lack of imagination and the safe option in modern film-making resulted in ’safe music’ these days?
At anyrate, for at least half of it’s running-time, I AM LEGEND doesn’t play it safe, and should, for all its failings in it’s latter half, be commended for that. I’d recommend it.
Comments»
My sentiments regarding Will Smith’s central casting are almost identical to yours and I’ve been similarly put off. However, unlike you I’ve not given it a chance but I may check it out at some point. Your opinions concerning the reduction in quality during the latter half seem compliant with almost every review I’ve read - shame as Hollywood seems dead set on ruining virtually every potentially great idea they can nowadays.