The I Am Legend Post

Finally saw I am Legend last night in Imax. I find that holiday releases never manage to fit into my schedule with all the end of year goings on so it was no surprise this one slipped thorough the cracks. Unfortunately, after seeing it I don’t know if it was worth catching. I never saw the ads and thought that it was a must see, but it did look like the kind of film that would be well received and would benefit from the Imax Experience™.

Turns out that the film underperformed to the degree where even 9 story screens cant make it engaging. While not a horrible film, I am Legend simple doesn’t excel in any particular category. The visuals where ok, but nothing phenomenal by today’s standards, and I find that the main efforts where dumped into making New York look deserted. They do a good job of this, but seem to think that panning over their work over and over constitutes a scene. I was impressed with the setting initially, but after seeing it from every possible angle at the beginning and end of every scene I quickly got fed up with the slow pace and found myself wondering what the plot was going to be. The dark-stalker zombie characters where rather poorly done and dripped with CG. They didn’t look like they where part of the same scene as the live action at all. The modeling what nicely executed, but the end result was a really fake looking interaction with the world around them that could have been avoided with some prosthesis and physical props. They look exactly like the Mummy monster from 1999’s film by the same name, which is a shame considering the leaps we’ve made in movie effects since then.

I am Legend has an interesting premise (cancer miracle cure turns bad and makes zombie people out of 99.9% of the population), but nothing particularly interesting transpires during the film. You can imagine how hectic and cool all the zombie mutation/evacuation aftermath was… but wont see much more than a few flashbacks from Will Smith’s p.o.v. which is a shame. Its pretty much an after-the-action-thriller, not an action-thriller itself. Unfortunately they filmmakers took the same approach with the ending, and leave a lot to be assumed by the audience, rather than actually see anything take place, which left me feeling gypped.

Characters, though well acted where shallow and overly linear. Even Smith’s character was flat and routine. You do meet additional characters, but do so too late in the movie to the point where what happens to them really doesn’t affect the audience very much. The best character interaction comes from Will and his dog, which they put allot of effort into, and succeeded on that front. Everyone else is cliché and dull. Will included.

On the plus side they where bundling a 5 minute preview of Batman’s latest; Dark Knight, which will be absolutely amazing. I found myself totally sucked into the scene they showed and felt cut off when it ended, and disappointed that I had to then watch a different film. Consider my appetite whet Mr. Wayne.