Will Smith and the Apocalypse

I finally got around to seeing “I Am Legend” on Monday night (trailer here). Will Smith did an decent job as Robert Neville, particularly since he spent most of the time acting alone or with his dog (the dog did a heck of a job in her own right.)

The film departed drastically from Matheson’s novel, but that’s not necessarily or automatically a bad thing. Earlier efforts at interpreting the book for the big screen have also changed the plot to greater or lesser effect (The Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man, etc.)

I really enjoyed the first 2/3rds of the movie. The tempo was exactly right, the special effects were convincing, and the mood was pitch-perfect. Unfortunately the film fell down a bit at the end. I’m not going to spill the beans beyond saying that the picture fell prey to all the common Hollywood pitfalls. Jacking up the action through over the top special effects, and bending over backwards by injecting odd plot devices to send the audience home “happy.”

I also wasn’t a fan with the particulars of the infected. Their mouths stretched in unnatural ways, and seemed cartoonish in the way they moved. All of them sported the taut musculature of a premiere triathlete (or Henry Rollins.) It was just too much.

Still, for the first 2/3rds and great rendering of Manhattan in tatters, I give “I Am Legend” a solid 6.5 out of 10.
Other reviews can be found at the NY Times, Seattle-PI, NY Post, and Ebert’s Chicago Sun Times.

This leads me to an amusing article I found: “Everything we know about surviving the apocalypse we learned at the movies.”