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[ms] · Est. May 2002

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I Am Legend

39 durable postsStarted 2007-06-15Latest 2008-05-15
#45392Post 1 of 39

[URL]http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/iamlegend/[/URL]

wow I can actually say I read the book before the movie on this one... :)

i dont know about will smith for the role of this character, but really i gotta hand it to him that he has been a pretty great actor for most of the stuff he has been in that ive seen sofar, so i am sure he wont be a hinderance. i just wish the preview would show more of the vampire shit.

#878068Post 2 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

i havent read the book .. so what is it?? the whole world turned into vampires or zombies? from the trailers it looks interesting

#878154Post 3 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

check this out:

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Legend[/url]

#878183Post 4 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

looks great!!......

#909885Post 5 of 39

I Am Legend

[URL]http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/iamlegend/medium.html[/URL]

too hard to tell if this is going to be great or just average...

#910057Post 6 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

could be, but then it has will smith which means alot of money put into it because he is popular, which means dumb down the plotline and add cliches

#910204Post 7 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

actually, i was reading somewhere that this movie adheres more to the original story than the other adaptations.

as long as he's calling someone or something else a 'mothafucka' i'm down with seeing it

#918002Post 8 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

Meh...Will Smith...Ali was cool but his sci-fi stuff so far has been too lame. I love this book, I haven't seen the Omega Man which was the main adaptation, but to be honest I like to keep my books and films separate.

#951144Post 9 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

great movie. bad ending

#951212Post 10 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

i agree

#951494Post 11 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

How was the ending bad? I enjoyed the movie and was expecting a bad ending, but I've seen worse. Simple math, entire planet suffers from vampire like inflictions and there are few humans left, how did you expect it to end?

#951583Post 12 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

SPOILERS

[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="1"]him not to kill himself and get inside the chimney with the mom and kid and live another day.[/SIZE][/COLOR]

#951591Post 13 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

the lines that were spoken at the end were retarded.

#951803Post 14 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

ok, I agree with that.

#951853Post 15 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

you gotta have the lines at the end. otherwise the title is retarded. also the book written like almost 30 years ago would be retarded.

#951889Post 16 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

I never said the book wasn't retarded. I said the ending was retarded.

#951920Post 17 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

got it :)

#952002Post 18 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

retarded

#952988Post 19 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

having seen both "The Invasion" (miserable movie) and "I am Legend" back to back, I ended up disliking both movies. I am Legend could've been a 5 minute movie because 98% of the movie plays out more like a meaningless video diary of one man's existence than anything else.

I was really disappointed with it. I expected some twists / theme / logic to the flick but other than the fact they ended up showing the crazy beings with a sense of "intelligence" (since they mimicked his act to trap him), there was nothing in the movie that made it exciting.

In the day and age of phenomenal CG (e.g. King Kong) I was really surprised to see the shitty graphics as well. I mean the deer and the lions and the swarm of crazy beings racing to the house not only looked superficially implanted onto the scene but themselves looked so plastic-ish.

Surprised its doing so well.

Give it a [B]4.5 / 10[/B]

#953170Post 20 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

Good to know!! will catchit rather on the small screen

#953410Post 21 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

A pretty good story...but the special effects and cgi were crap...

p.s. will smith was best as the fresh prince....;)

#954047Post 22 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

poor dog!...

#954076Post 23 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

Not enough story or direction was just kind of there then ended a film that could have gotten away with being a bit longer but just seemed incomplete.

#954370Post 24 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

I didn't realize rabies could make people climb buildings and be elastic. This was an absolute shit movie. I would like to read the book as I hear it's actually really interesting. There's also flash episodes that seem to be really cool. But ya, this movie deserves 2/10.

#954373Post 25 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

Special effects = shit Storyline = shit Ending = ridiculously shit

A complete waste of a fiver and 2 hours of my life

#954374Post 26 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

[QUOTE=Digger;555685]poor dog!...[/QUOTE]

Samantha !!! :lol:

#954383Post 27 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

Wow haven´t see such a bad movie in a long time!! A total waste of time.

#955064Post 28 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

I thought this might be good to watch but reading all the reviews i think i am gonna hire it on dvd or wait a year or so till it comes out on free to air tv :D

#955087Post 29 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

Same here. The trailers looked cool, but since everyone is bashing it, I'd rather catch it on the small screen...

#955313Post 30 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

google, you'll pick up rapidshare slices of a dvd scr33ner floating around

#971016Post 31 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

this movie is really a piece of "$#$"

#978366Post 32 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

hope this is the last incarnation of Richard Mathesons's brilliant classic. Why does Hollywood have to mess with perfection? I was anxious to see it, having read the book several times, and I'm a fan of Hollywood's first impression of the original tale, The Omega Man (1971). I've also seen 28 Days Later; On The Beach; The Stand; Fail Safe; Threads; and The Day After several times each. I guess you could say I love the Apocalypse as a theme.

I've been a fan of Richard Matheson almost since I learned how to read. Besides Rod Serling, he is the man behind many of the classic Twilight Zone stories (second only to Serling himself), and has penned other novel-to-film classics like What Dreams May Come; A Stir of Echoes; The Legend of Hell House (paralleled, if not plagiarized, by Stephen King with his Rose Red); and countless screenplays. Where American Sci-Fi fiction is concerned, he is right up there with Isaac Asimov, Michael Crichton and Ray Bradbury. Stephen King and Dean Koontz are great too and I enjoy their work, but they write pulp. Unlike Matheson, Crichton, Bradbury and Asimov, there are no lessons or morals from King and Koontz. It's just entertainment.

This brings me around to my critique of the movie I am Legend. As entertainment, it works just fine. Will Smith is just okay, like the Chevrolet of Acting. He's predictable, and does what you want him to do. He brings no depth or personality to the protagonist at all. He's just a body. As for the other actors.......well, they are mostly CGI or creatures. Oh, yeah....there's a dog too.

For the second time in film (The Omega Man being the first), Robert Neville is portrayed as US Army medical officer who is intimately familiar with and is partially the cause of the virulent disease that has turned the world into bloodthirsty homicidal maniacs. In Matheson's book, as well as in The Omega Man, there is a biological warfare element. In the current film, the virus has more benign origins, but that's all I'll say. Matheson's literary Neville is just a blue-collar guy who is smart enough to try and find an answer to the catastrophe. That theme is what made the book so compelling. No state of the art laboratory, no heavy credentials. Neville was an ordinary guy who was caught up in extraordinary circumstances. By night, he holes up in his modest but heavily fortified LA home, blasting Beethoven and getting drunk to drown out the howling hordes of quasi intelligent vampires who want to kill him. By day, he hunts them down in their lairs and kills them in their sleep. He is actually the bogeyman....the terror by day, a daymare. "Brush your fangs, junior, or Neville will come and get you in your sleep!" Think about it. What does the title I am Legend really mean? Apparently, Akiva Goldsman has a very different opinion.

Obviously, Hollywood decided long ago that CGI and special effects will trump a good story every time. Like a child's video game, imagery has become the stimulus. It was briefly interesting to see Manhattan as deserted and overgrown, but the special effects seemed to be what the movie was relying on. Take them away, and there was nothing left. Was the movie bad? Not at at all, but it would have been more accurate to title it as Home Alone 4: WTF am I doing here?. Matheson's tale was botched again. So badly in fact, it bears no resemblance to the original book. That's ashame. Call me a purist, but why does Hollywood have to rework a classic, or inject so much "artistic license" into a plot that it becomes something utterly different than what was originally created? M. Night Shamalayan showed us what is still possible with superior writing, directing, and minimal special effects. Just watch The Sixth Sense. Here we have a film that had huge potential, given over to a mediocre screenwriter/producer and a relatively unknown director whose only experience was with music videos and the forgettable bomb, "Constantine." I think that the egos, greed, and arrogant laziness of the producers and screenwriters have a lot to do with the dumbing down of great original fiction.

There are a number of key elements from the book that this film virtually ignores: The overall vampire legend itself, Neville's personal struggle to save his little family from the dust-borne plague; his undead wife returning to him; the daily vampire hunt; his former carpool buddy and neighbor, Ben Cortman, who has become his nightly nemesis; and most importantly, the near fatal "stopped watch" incident, which even The Omega Man indirectly paid homage to. All of these items would have required the screenwriter and producer to do some actual writing, rather than letting the CGI guys take over the production.

Some ironies to consider: The book itself was only about one hundred and forty-odd pages long. Three movie attempts essentially blew it. The Omega Man wasn't close either, but was far more original in execution than the current version, in my opinion. The Spaghetti thriller, The Last Man on Earth(1964) with Vincent Price, was almost perfect where the story was concerned. Unfortunately, it was so low budget that the production quality made it almost unwatchable.

Matheson spun an enduring classic in less than two hundred pages. It was the quality of the material rather than "pictures;" or special effects, that made the story. What ashame that this movie couldn't have done the same. If you're into apocalyptic Sci-Fi, you'll probably enjoy this film. But don't expect too much

#978375Post 33 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

^^ that almost makes me wanna revive [url]http://movies.mercuryblogs.com[/url] :lol:

#995636Post 34 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

just saw this today. good film. will smith never disappoints in any of his films. such a good actor and really draws you in to his character (ie: pursuit of happyness) i'm not much for zombie type flicks but this one was definitely easier for me to get in to than the likes of '28 days later' or 'the hills have eyes'

#996455Post 35 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

just saw the alternate ending..... I cant believe they thunk it that way

#996461Post 36 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

I finally saw this over the weekend and didn't think it was great. I'd say its an average movie at best. Will Smith is a good actor, but there's really not too much going on that's interesting. I think it would have been better if they focused more on the outbreak than Will Smith being alone.

#996466Post 37 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

yeah, watched this again and still thought they could have done a lot better with the story. it jumped from beginning to climax to end in a heartbeat. however, i enjoyed it while the short time it was on. will smith is always entertaining.

#1019512Post 38 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

effects were terrible!

GREAT for making me jump out of my seat. But really really awful ending - very tacky.

28 days later was much better.

#1019534Post 39 of 39

Re: I Am Legend

will smith should never of been given the role

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