I am Legend (***)
Director: Francis Lawrence (Constantine and Music Videos)
Starring: Will Smith
Seen: January 4th 2008
*** Out of ****
This film is based (very loosely) upon the Richard Matheson book of the same name published in 1954. It is the first film named after the book, although two others (The Last Man on Earth, 1964 and The Omega Man, 1971) have been made. Directed by Francis Lawrence, who directed Keanu Reeves’ Constantine, I was prepared for some interesting visuals and ideas.
I must say I truly enjoyed this film, the balance between light-hearted handling of one man’s loneliness and the violence just below the core was handled very well. The suspense in some scenes nearly killed me even on a second watching; they were done brilliantly.
As always Will Smith is brilliant, frantic, emotional, strong, simply great. And for most of the film he acts with a dog. He can not put a foot wrong (almost, there was Wild Wild West). And here he does it again, to great effect, and with beautiful effects to back him up, mostly. The lions do not look as good as Aslan does in Narnia, but the city’s degradation is spot-on. The “vampires” are intimidating, but also slightly plastic. And the explosions are beautiful, and the fires too.
I found out about an alternate ending for the film, and bought the DVD as soon as it became available. (The marketing people got something wrong here, since the cover advertised a contriversial alternate ending, spelling mistake intended. It is pathetic to have such elementary errors on a DVD-cover). I watched it, and even though friends of mine don’t really think so, I liked the alternate ending better – since it gave the “vampires” slightly more humanity, and made their memory that slight bit scarier, in other words, it was a bit more faithful to the source material.
Before reading the original book by Matheson, my rating for the film was at least 3½ *. The problem here is that the book was so much better, which forced me to recalibrate my rating for this film – great elements were left out or changed, elements which could have pushed this film so much further. I would have dearly liked a more faithful to the book version of I am Legend, even though I only realised it after the fact.
I did still enjoy this film, and if you’d like even just a little bit of adrenaline pumping, this one won’t let you down…
Starring: Will Smith
Seen: January 4th 2008
*** Out of ****
This film is based (very loosely) upon the Richard Matheson book of the same name published in 1954. It is the first film named after the book, although two others (The Last Man on Earth, 1964 and The Omega Man, 1971) have been made. Directed by Francis Lawrence, who directed Keanu Reeves’ Constantine, I was prepared for some interesting visuals and ideas.
I must say I truly enjoyed this film, the balance between light-hearted handling of one man’s loneliness and the violence just below the core was handled very well. The suspense in some scenes nearly killed me even on a second watching; they were done brilliantly.
As always Will Smith is brilliant, frantic, emotional, strong, simply great. And for most of the film he acts with a dog. He can not put a foot wrong (almost, there was Wild Wild West). And here he does it again, to great effect, and with beautiful effects to back him up, mostly. The lions do not look as good as Aslan does in Narnia, but the city’s degradation is spot-on. The “vampires” are intimidating, but also slightly plastic. And the explosions are beautiful, and the fires too.
I found out about an alternate ending for the film, and bought the DVD as soon as it became available. (The marketing people got something wrong here, since the cover advertised a contriversial alternate ending, spelling mistake intended. It is pathetic to have such elementary errors on a DVD-cover). I watched it, and even though friends of mine don’t really think so, I liked the alternate ending better – since it gave the “vampires” slightly more humanity, and made their memory that slight bit scarier, in other words, it was a bit more faithful to the source material.
Before reading the original book by Matheson, my rating for the film was at least 3½ *. The problem here is that the book was so much better, which forced me to recalibrate my rating for this film – great elements were left out or changed, elements which could have pushed this film so much further. I would have dearly liked a more faithful to the book version of I am Legend, even though I only realised it after the fact.
I did still enjoy this film, and if you’d like even just a little bit of adrenaline pumping, this one won’t let you down…
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