What a cop-out

Rating: 4/10 (25 April 2008)

I find it hard to describe my feelings abut this film without using wee short words.
Basically, it's a good buildup followed by a bit of specious God claptrap and a cop-out.
Will Smith's character's taking apart of that woman's "God's-Plan" codswallop is excellent, but after that they can't let him live: they paint him into a corner, give him a divine vision of a butterfly and with one hand grenade he takes out a whole Boy's Brigade Troop of "vampires" and himself to boot (thus making a hero of a suicide bomber), then she drives casually up to Vermont; and the first thing you notice when the Gates of Salvation swing open is a down-home white church with a bell calling the faithful to prayer. Give me a break! It made me wonder how much money the Religious Right had poured in.
As someone else observed, it's a missed opportunity, but really it's a lot worse than that. The cop-out and swift voice-over ending are a great let-down. The woman (appropriately kitted out with little boy from the stock properties department, to which he may now be returned only lightly used and very glad we are of that) appeared too late for us to form any attachment, so really we didn't give a hoot whether she got saved (with a small S, with a big S she was already a goner) or chewed up. I formed the impression that she was dropped in there as a last-minute decision after a plot meeting that went "OK, we're stuck. Here he is in this house, he's lost his dog (easily the most impressive actor on the set, incidentally), he's got a bolt in his neck, sorry, leg, the ghoulies are breaking in by the hundred and gee, how are we going to have the audience Feel Good when they finally stick the gum under the seat and go home?" News for you: it would have been a lot more convincing if the ghoulies had won. They could have spared us the ghastly woman - or maybe got her crunched, what joy! - and simply left a picture of inevitable desolation. I would have bought it. But they way they ended it I didn't Feel Good at all, I felt I'd been conned.
Something else, too: anyone else notice how the villain of the piece, yet again, wasn't American? They can be French, English, German, Serbo-Croat, Italian or whatever, as long as they aren't from the good old U.S. of A. And calling her Krippen! Oh my godfathers...
Thinking of buying the DVD? Save your money! I wish I'd saved mine.