My turn for a review on this movie. Hehe, haven't really done movie reviews for almost a year now. Didn't really watch many movies this year thanks to the ever rising RM-AUD exchange rate.

Let's start with the storyline. My initial view on the concept of "the last surviving human" is that it's a really good concept to elaborate on. A bit like "Unbreakable". However when I found out that it involves zombies/vampires I sort of felt apprehensive about it due to my bad experience with movies such as Resident Evil. I was worried that it might turn out to be just another typical hollywood action flick where the hero/heroine takes on an entire army of gnarled humanoids. The poster where Will Smith carries a badass rifle didn't help either.

Nevertheless, my worries turned out to be redundant. This is by no means an full-fledged action movie, despite having loads of gun shooting and fights. I don't really know what genre it should be classified as - Drama? Not really, since there's virtually zero character interaction. Sci-fi? Not exactly, since there ain't much scientific explantions nor are there any fancy tech. If anything, I felt that this movie resembles "War Of The Worlds", where it focuses more on human characters and emotions with an action-themed/scifi setting.

Never mind, genres don't really matter.

Character-wise, meh... there's only one true character and that's Robert Neville. There's nothing new or interesting about this character anyway - Family loving guy losing his loved ones, lonely outcast hell bent on saving the world, all action hero with tons of muscles, and of course sacrificing himself to save all humanity. He does show signs of weakness such as his fears for the zombies and his apparent loneliness, but we've all seen characters like this, haven't we?

This is not to say that Robert is a poor character, in fact it's pretty decent, but compared to superb complex characters like those in The Prestige (yes, I can't stop praising this movie) it's fairly mundane.

Will Smith. Ah... the saviour of this movie. His acting is undoubtedly top notch in this movie, especially for someone who will always be associated with the words "slick", "smooth", and "cool". I haven't seen his earlier work "The Pursuit of Happyness", but previously Will has always given the impression of a tough guy. In this movie, his portrayal of a desperate yet lonely hero on the verge of losing his faith and sanity was indeed impressive. I would say his best part in this movie was when Sam ran into the dark warehouse, and Robert was forced to enter. His expression of fear gave me the sense of horror much more than the disfigured creatures did.

About his portrayal of loneliness and yearning for human contract? That was good, but I dare say that Tom Hanks did much better in "Castaway". I felt more pity and compassion for Hanks than Will when comparing both movies. Overall, the theme of "sole mankind" in "Castaway" was much better done than "I Am Legend".

Other characters were merely stand-ins. Can't say much for Sam, (hehe, she's a dog what do you expect?) while Anna and Robert's family got too little screen time to make an impact. The zombies? Apart from being annoying I don't find them giving me any psychological scares. In other words... meh... not horrifying enough. I'd love to shove a grenade down their throats for screaming so much

Speaking of the zombies, I'd like to see more of them for example how they managed to survive, how savage they were especially when hunting etc. And I cheered when Robert got trapped by his own method - It means that they might have some intelligence after all instead of being mindless beasts. Yet as the movie unveiled they were merely dumbasses with a lot of brute strength and speed yet not having any brains.

Now for cinematography. The CGIs were well done, yet nothing spectacular like Transformers (I didn't really like that movie despite it being well made but that's for another day). Action scenes weren't particularly well too. The harbour melee after Sam's death was far too messy to be enjoyable. I feel that a good brawl should be shot clearly for the viewers to enjoy the moves, the fights, and of course some bloodshed; yet when everything happens so fast that no one can see what's going on, that's not a good scene. "Transformers" suffered the same at the ending part where every robot just got together in a wrestling match and kicked the shit out of each other... Can't see anything

Maybe I'm getting too old for fast packed action fights... The sudden, loud sound effects which tried to frighten viewers failed too. It's used far too often in horror movies nowadays, to the extent that it simply fails to excite anymore. A temporary stun maybe, due to the high decibels, but none of the fear factor.

Another thing that I disliked was the shaky camera views whenever there's some action. The shooting angle was shuffling too fast from one side to another while shaking as if an earthquake was happening at the same time. It just made my head spin more and there were times I'd just shut my eyes instead of watching at the shaky images. I'm sure it's intentional to showcase the feeling of urgency in the movie, but again it adds to the blurriness of the action parts where I just could not concentrate enough to appreciate it.

If anyone remembers, "I Am Sam" (superb movie) had the same shaky, fast shifting camera views despite NOT being an action flick. I had headaches watching that too

Finally, the pacing. BAD. Seriously BAD. I almost fell asleep in the first one hour of the show. It's important to highlight Robert's lonesome in the dead city, but one WHOLE hour of man-dog interaction is utterly boring. Why not show more flashbacks of the period when the KV spread around Manhattan? Showing how people dropped dead one by one, or transforming into zombies would be a much better explanation (and visual stimulation too) compared to a one paragraph verbal outbust in the ending part, where Robert shouted NO GOD! to Anna.

I got really bored until Anna appeared... I was like WOW... chun chick finally. The point is, now at least we'll have some character interaction. Not romance of course, I'll cringe if they kissed or make out (damn they've only just met and are fighting to survive). Too bad, as mentioned above, Anna and Ethan got too little time to be significant.

The ending was very rushed, but kinda expected for a story like this. There's no way to end it except the way it did, and I'm particularly bothered about it. Just the pacing... just that.

Conclusion? Hm.... I can't say I liked this movie, yet at the same time it wasn't that bad after all. I've wasted money on more disappointing movies before. All I can say is, my expectations were too high, hence the disappointment. There's so many aspects which can be improved on, but thankfully it didn't turn out to be a mindless kill-all-zombies flick.

GhazzerRate: 3/5... So so... Will Smith's acting saved it from the movie zombies

This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Dec 20 2007, 01:41 AM

Well, as a lot of people mentioned before, Robert was considered a legend because he was the one that found a cure, and the remainders of mankind owe their lives to him. I'd say that the events that happened after Anna reached the sanctuary place was that the authorities gained a method to cure the zombies and used it to reverse the effects of the KV hence saving all humanity.

That's why Anna claimed that humans (those who survived and got cured) are the legacy of Robert Neville, and he is considered as their "legend" or "saviour".

As for the ending... well, that's heroic effect for you. A hero's death brings a stronger emotion than him surviving the ordeal. It also glorifies the sacrifice he made in order to save mankind. Stupid, you might say, but Hollywood emphasises more on glory than reality.

If a reason is to be made, we could say that :
1. Robert was already on the verge of insanity, hence he did not value his life anymore.
2. He wanted revenge so badly due to the deaths of his family and Samantha to the extent that his rage clouded his rational judgement.
3. He did not believe in the so-called sanctuary in Vermont despite Anna's insistence, hence he did not even think that he'll survive to reach there. He probably wouldn't want to go there as well since he didn't believe in God and he refused to leave Ground Zero.

Meh... don't think too much into it. The hero just had to die. He must.

This post has been edited by StarGhazzer: Dec 20 2007, 01:54 PM

yeah.... who knows what Robert did with the mannequin at night?

About Anna's God referrence, she's from Sao Paolo so chances are she's a devout and religious Catholic hence it would make sense that she shares "god's vision".

No lah... Samantha got NTBD so she put it there.

your reply sucks more if you can't support it with explanation and further elaboration.

LOL...

careful of zombie thread hehe...

Haha.. Cloverfield monster WTF man...

I'm not sure whether I like this new ending more than the old one. Yes, I did mention about my dissatisfaction about the original ending due to its abruptness, yet this alternative one didn't seem to add much into the show.

Most importantly, it was even more subtle regarding the possibility of a cure. In the original one, at least we know that Robert succeeded in his quest thanks to the final comments, but this one wasn't as clear cut as it should be.

What happens if the female zombie manage to be cured while she was with the zombie gang? Will they eat her then? Will she freak out when she hears those annoying AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH?