So very predictable

Rating: 3/10 (4 January 2008)

First and foremost - I love the book. It's one of the few I read every few years and I still get a kick out of it.
As for the movie, well since I saw the casting I didn't expect much from it. I also read a comment a while back saying it was going to be "so cool - like 28 days later in New York". That didn't inspire me with confidence. 28 days was great but IT was inspired by books like I Am Legend and movies like Night Of The Living Dead - I can't see how it can be used as inspiration for it's own inspiration (if that at all makes sense). Without wanting to drag UK films down - I felt that that comment meant they were setting the bar a bit low.
So - I finally went to see it. It had one or two "okay" moments but overall very lacklustre. I thought Constantine was okay(despite being different from the course material again) but the production team, writers and director have missed a real opportunity by not going for a faithful adaption of the novel (which also made a great 4-part graphic novel for anyone who remembers). Annoyingly Will Smith came across with some quality acting at moments, but these were few and far between before the movie slid into the usual formula which we all know too well - gunfire, explosions, our hero screaming at the camera and shameless product placement from Apple and Ford which was almost on a par with what we had to put up with in I-Robot ("cool, converse 2004 classics" - aargh!).
And some constructive criticism to the CG department - that movie was a bad day at the office for you all and these days there's no excuse for that sort of thing. The monsters looked terrible and the Ford Mustang tearing through the streets at the start looked less convincing than the Mustang I drive in PGR3.
When will the US accept that we've seen this sort of nonsense so often that we can spot it coming a mile away. They've got great talent and resources yet they choose to release sub-par movies. My advice to the casual viewer is to resist the heavy marketing and wait for DVD, then borrow it from a friend (just not me, I won't be buying it - I have the book which is far better and cheaper).
I live in hope that one day they'll get a decent adaption of this book to the screen. I just hope I don't have to wait long for that.