I Am Legend?....

Rating: 6/10 (7 January 2008)

"I Am Legend" is probably one of the most important books in the genre, I doubt there'd be a Night of the Living Dead, no Dawn, No omega man, no 28 days later and none of the films inspired by those films. So that stated you realise how enthusiastic I was about I Am Legend "Hey there using the actual title this time it must be a lot closer to the original story now..right?" I thought Will Smith was good as Neville, It wasn't the Will Smith from Bad Boys and Indapendance Day (I think a lot of people thought it might be) He made it feel so reel watching him going through loneliness and insanity. I feel they should have gone one way or the other with the action though, seems like they where trying to dance on two lines at once. Did they wanna make an action packed Omega Man or a character study horror film? If they had gone all action (Yet sticking to the basic storyline) I'd have enjoyed it. I think the Schwarzenegger/Ridley Scott version might have gone that route.(And yes I would have enjoyed that too) The CGI was seriously dodgy, I actually though some of the animals had escaped from Jamngi, well It's not really the fact the CGI was bad it's the fact it was used too much and most of the time when a far more economic and realistic alternative could be used.
Think about good cgi in films, Jurassic Park, T2. partly the reason there was the CGI was for things we have never seen; liquid metal men and dinosaurs. If you use it for humanoid creatures or animals (especielly furry ones) we'll spot its fake as we are so used to seeing them. But also because they where designed to work with well made practical effects.
Actors in make-up and actual REAL animals, you are not really trying to make me believe they don't have trained animals for films any more. CGI would of coarse still be used for animals attacking and the creatures doing un natural things but thats all it should be used for.
Look at the reapers from Blade II they where far more convincing and scary, thats another point as soon as a Close Up of a bad CGI vampire appeared it lost a realism all the great character build up with Smith was lost in an instant. It's almost as if the film itself was affected by night, by day a smart character study into the horror of isolation by night a bad cgi filled action film I feel the whole point of the book was missed like not having the other infected intelligent people who Neville had killed and thus became a "Legend" by doing so. I thought that Anna was going to be one of them and that the place she was trying to lead him too was there society.
I really wished some of them could talk I remember how creepy it seemed in the Vincent Price version when his partner would torment him every night I mean every night for 3 years its outside not letting you get some sleep "we're gonna get you".
If it where just BASED on the book and not an adaption they shouldn't have used the title, Title should be kept for adaptations. Movies based on books that differ I don't mind e.g "Total Recall", "Blade Runner", "Die Hard" but could you imagine "Lord of the Rings" reception if they had decided to change the plot? I have to say the expansion of the dog relationship was better and made the dogs death even sadder when you realise just how important that relationship was the Neville, although perhaps showing him capture the dog like in the book would have been better. The whole film seemed to go by so quick, 1 hour 40 mins? feels like there was no 3rd act at all. Plus it seemed to only take a period of a few days, I'd have preferred to watch Nevile over months like Tom Hanks in Castaway.
In actuality it was the same basic premise used many times by Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later etc (I Know they where all inspired by the book) but if your going to do a new film the most original thing they could have done is actually stick to the "Basic" storyline.
I'm not saying it's terrible but a lot of things let it down.