Boyle 1. Lawrence 0.

Rating: 2/10 (2 January 2008)

Now, being British may be used in the future as a way to deride this review by claiming its author is bias. But, when the politics of the United Kingdom are taken into account i.e. the English and Scottish disliking each other immensely, I am sure this will considered and the objectivity of this review will be placed, without a scratch upon it, back into the pages of 'down the middle' journalism. I am English and Danny Boyle is Scottish, yet I will not let that influence my thinking.
Still, it is a time to be bold - he who dares wins and all that. And I believe I am being bold when I say:
I am Legend is not as good as 28 Days Later!
And, furthermore, I am absolutely beguiled in how I am Legend didn't learn from or even seem to acknowledge the stylistic and atmospheric achievements of 28 Days Later and made New York look like a legion of Hollywood designers came in and made the place over. London has never looked so empty and abandoned (and down right chilling) as it did in Boyle's crack at the Armageddon whip. It looked real. New York looked like it had been redesigned.
I am Legend is as good as 28 Weeks Later since it has an as highly implausible plot and unbelievable ending. One is infinitely more Hollywood than the other, although 28 Weeks Later has its moments - a helicopter decapitating hordes of Zombies. Ahem. Right. I am Legend is tense and somewhat imaginative, yet the baddies look quite false in comparison to the real baddies of 28DL and 28WL, who were not CGI'd. What is it with directors and CGI? Are humans not good enough anymore? Do we have to be replaced by something virtual every damned time? George Lucas seems to think so and Lawrence has apparently jumped on that flaming and sinking bandwagon.
Anyway, technically speaking, the camera work and vision of Francis Lawrence (Constantine being another visual treat of his) feels like any second it could pierce the bubble of what directors are allowed to do because it'll appeal to the mainstream audience and into what he might do in order to make it a more consistent and intelligent looking film. Putting aside the huge problems with the story and script, he would at least of been able to claim that with the sound muted it looked like some seriously good stuff. This may sound snobby and like a dismissal of the mainstream audience, but when the film finished in my local Odeon, laughter could be heard from all corners of the theatre; not because Smith ended it with a Fresh Prince like pose and an exclamation that he was indeed the Man, but because throughout the film the sound was not muted and it not only didn't look that great, but it sounded pretty bad too. Although, saying that, Lawrence did dare to use a body-mounted camera to depict Smith's panic at being chased through a building and onto the street, but it was only once and didn't seem to fit in anywhere. In contrast, Boyle used a whole host of shots, in 28DL, ranging from the jittery first person zombie dash to the super sharp and slightly shaky long view when Murphy was being chased through the broken and grey streets of London. Boyle was consistent and even with the sound off 28DL looks terrifying.
Smith does an adequate to good job of portraying a man on the brink of losing his grip. He clings to his old life through trying to build a new one as well as following a strong routine. Smith shows us a range of emotions, but in an emotional rather than an intelligent way. He uses the same physical gestures and tones of voice that he has in all of his other films. Angry? Time to shout and point in someone's face. There, that'll do it. This is not the work of a master, yet it is the work of someone who knows how to cry just a little bit. In contrast to this, Cillian Murphy, as directed by the wonderful Danny Boyle captures a man lost in a new world that he had no idea existed (being in a coma for 28 days; hence the title). He adapts as humans do, through tears and demanding to have just enough information to formulate an understanding of what he now has to do. He takes to killing well and shows us how close we are to being rage fuelled loons through realistic reactions and not shouting unless someone is quite far away and they can't hear him otherwise.
The crux of the matter for I am Legend is simply, to sum up, that it didn't look believable which didn't help the thin plot and awful ending. Awful because after an hour and forty minutes the audience, me included, lost all traces of what seemed reasonable and felt that our intelligence was being insulted terribly. At least with 28DL you could walk away thinking that the last bad tasting twenty minutes of total gore could easily be swallowed if washed down by the first hour and forty of splendour and intelligent film-making. Film making that was quite daring and experimental and still managed to do well.