Customer Reviews

I Am Legend [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I was really looking forward to seeing "I Am Legend", from the moment I found out earlier this year. In preparation to seeing the movie, I watched Vincent Price in "The Last Man on Earth" and Charlton Heston in "The Omega Man". Even though the main ideas of the two prior versions were the same (last man, virus, night creatures, etc.), the delivery varied for their particular time. So I was intrigued to see how the storyline would be adapted to our time.

The first thing that struck me was the set. Growing up in New York City, it really hit me hard to see the devastation and isolation of the city that "Never Sleeps". The streets, the abandoned cars, the bridges, the U.N.,etc. It really hit home. Then we see a much slender, leaner Will Smith trying to cope with the fact that he was alone. His portrayal of Robert Neville is great. Very moving. I find the origin of the virus quite interesting as it comes as a side effect for a cure for cancer. The prior two movies used a plague (The Last Man on Earth) and germ warfare (The Omega Man) to explain the virus. The use of a cure that transforms into a virus gives it an ironic twist.

The film opens well, and continues that way until the introduction of the other two human characters, but that's about an hour or more of Smith, alone in Manhattan after a genetically-altered version of the measles has either killed or mutated the rest of humanity into super-violent creatures who prey on those unaffected, but only at night. They're killed almost instantly when exposed to sunlight. Smith, playing Robert Neville, was an Army Lieutenant before the virus was unleashed three years prior, and he spends his lonely days walking and stalking on the grown-in streets of Manhattan with his dog, Sam. At night, he locks himself in his apartment and attempts to find a cure. It's interesting seeing Smith carry the movie with only himself, Sam, some various wild animal species, and some mannequins. He does an excellent job, and I'm sure that's not an easy task for an actor. This is easily the most likable character he's ever played, and he brings a lot of great stuff to it, including humor and a scene that had me on the verge of tears.

Will Smith and the strength of the story outweigh the two mot glaringly bad things about this film. However, the creature effects are WAY too over-reliant on CGI, but then again, so are most horror films these days, so you might be used to it. Animatronics and foam rubber latex effects pioneered well over thirty years ago look a lot more believable than this cartoonish junk. And the other thing is the ending. It's not terrible, and it won't make you dislike the rest of the film, but the original story's ending is very sad and ironic, and this, like the other two adaptations, just can't seem to cope with the magnitude of the situation, so they always leave you with something WAY to hopeful for what we've seen throughout the rest of the film, and also, it seems that they're afraid to teach you the incredible lesson the original Matheson story had to offer. This is a good adaptation of Richard Matheson's 'I Am Legend.' So far, none of the three have nailed it, due to the inability to just use the story's ending, but this one comes close and is certainly one of the best of the three (the other two are good flicks so I recommend them all).

I Am Legend (2007)
Drama, Science Fiction, Thriller, 101 minutes
Directed by Francis Lawrence
Starring Will Smith and Alice Braga

Will Smith is one of the biggest box office draws, whether it's for action, comedy or drama. He has the charisma to pull off just about any role and is improving as a dramatic actor as he matures. I Am Legend contains some action, but it's a futuristic drama more than anything else. Smith is required to show considerable range.

The movie makes this list because it shows how people adapt in extreme situations. Robert Neville (Smith) is possibly the last man alive after a cure for cancer turns people into aggressive zombie-like creatures who live in the dark. He's a scientist and appears to have a natural immunity to the virus. He's trying to develop a vaccine that will help these creatures recover their humanity.

Imagine if you had an entire city to yourself. How would you spend your time? Neville has a routine. He wakes up at the same time each day, works out, and then systematically searches the buildings in the area for canned food and bottled water. This is vital for his survival. He also continues his research and tries out his vaccines on laboratory rats. In order to maintain the illusion that he's not alone, he watches recorded TV shows and talks to mannequins while he works his way through the inventory of a local video store. Every day at Noon, he waits at a predetermined location for any response to his radio messages offering hope and shelter to other survivors.

New York is an abandoned city. Grass has reclaimed most of the land and Neville has to compete with lions when he goes hunting for dear. The early special effects are very convincing and we are drawn in to Neville's world. Some of the exposition is achieved through showing Neville's dreams and we discover that his wife and daughter were evacuated along with the other healthy people left in the city. His only friend now is Sam, his dog. Unlike Neville, Sam can be affected by contact with the creatures roaming the city.

One of the saddest scenes in the movie comes after Sam is bitten by a creature carrying the virus. He injects her with serum in the hope that it will prevent her from transforming into a deadly version of his former companion. If you are an animal-lover, it's a hard scene to watch.

I won't ruin the movie for those who haven't seen it. Is Neville really alone? Will he develop a cure? If he does, will it even be possible to capture the creatures and successfully administer the cure?

The film raises a serious question; are humans the biggest threat to their own survival?

The Blu-ray includes an alternate ending. Both endings are hopeful, but one is considerably more hopeful than the other. The Blu-ray presentation is just about perfect.

Personally, I can ignore substandard special effects and CGI, if the story and acting are strong enough to carry the movie through to the end. Will Smith does an excellent job of portraying a man so lonely, teetering on the edge of insanity and just plain giving up, yet still so driven to find a cure and help the afflicted, who at the same time he fears so much. This movie was excellent when I saw it in the theatre...right up to the ending, which I just did not buy in to. I won't spoil it for you, but I will say this...BUY THE 2 DISC VERSION WITH THE ALTERNATE ENDING. It's sooooo much better, and fits the story very well, it has meaning, it's almost touching.. I don't know how the studio decided to go with the theatrical ending over this one, but given Hollywood is stuck in an age of endless sequels, I suppose we should be thankful for the almost perfect film we were given. The extras on this set are good, but I would love to hear some in depth running commentary from Will Smith on this role. He's grown into such an accomplished actor, and this film proves he can carry a good story and take the audience with him on a suspenseful ride! 4 out of 5 stars!

I am Legend stars Will Smith as the supposed last man on earth after a deadly plague rids the world of every human being on earth 3 years ago. Still, Smith is not alone, there are animals, some of them friendly and others definitely not, and hordes of vampires, remnants of what used to be the humans Smith knew.

This film is a great rendering of solitude and how in the end nothing matters but the relationships we form with other people. We see Smith go to great lengths to try to salvage something approaching the real world, for example him going to a video store full of mannequins to rent movies and him watching old news that was taped, all in an effort for him not to lose his grasp on the English language and to avoid sliding into insanity.

Almost more of a remake of "The Omega Man" rather than a faithful adaptation of Richard Matheson's classic novel, "I am legend" is a great film with an amazing performance by Smith. There's not a lot of actors today I could suffer as being the only character for the entire movie, but Smith pulls it off.

I love Will Smith and have always enjoyed his films. So, when I heard he was doing this remake of the book, "I Am Legend", Richard Matheson's masterpiece of horror, I could not wait to see the film. Having already seen the two prior adaptations, "The Omega Man", starring Charlton Heston, and "The Last Man on Earth", starring Vincent Price, I looked forward to seeing what this remake would bring to the table.

This is an interesting adaptation of the book in many ways, capturing the essence of despair, loneliness, and hope that runs through the book and transferring it successfully to film. Here, Will Smith is cast as Robert Neville, a military scientist who finds that he is immune to the virus that has run amok and globally killed off most of the population or turned them into vampire-like killers who dwell in the dark, coming out only at night where they prowl the earth seeking other living creatures to nosh on.

Robert Neville seems to be the only human being left in New York City. Coming out by day with his beloved dog, which is his only companion, Neville hunts for food and necessities, taking care to get home before night fall. He lives in solitary splendor in his town house in Washington Square Park, where he struggles to find a cure for the virus in hopes of restoring humanity to those rabid creatures that were once human and now prowl the earth at night.

The bleak landscape of a New York City that is ravaged by the changes is compelling, and Smith, as Neville, does exude that pathos of a man who has nearly lost all hope. His attempts at communicating with other human beings that have not been transformed by the virus are touching, especially so when we see how he longs for interaction with others like himself.
Unfortunately, the film becomes undone by too much reliance on computer generated monsters, failing to realize that less is sometimes more. Instead, the special effects render the second half of the film to something that one would see in a video game. Consequently, I found myself hoping that the end of the film would soon arrive.

While I did enjoy the film overall, it was, ultimately, disappointing, as my expectations were so high. It is unfortunate that the powers that be were so enamored of the special effects that they were unable to show some restraint. What was potentially a filmmaking masterpiece turned into a film that was simply a contender, despite Will Smith's excellent performance. In the end it was a performance that was overshadowed by the filmmaker's excess.

The movie is great until the end where it becomes another mindless action fest, which is a pity.

The Steelbook itself looks good, though the cardcover is attached on top via a sticker. This is unwieldy and looks pretty cheap (and for the premium you pay for a Steelbook a normal cardslide shouldn't be that much to expect), as the cover does contain useful information like running time so I don't want to throw it awat

I didn't really enjoy I Am Legend. Though I usually enjoy a good dystopian flick, this one felt lacking in plot and premise and tended to be on the boring side.

My first experience with this story was Heston's "The Omega Man", which at the time was great. But I feel this one beats it by a mile, primarily because Will Smith is much more believable as Dr. Neville than Charlton Heston was. In particular, Heston's Neville came across as too omnipotent and omniscient, whereas Smith's Neville is a real-live vulnerable and insecure human.

I agree with at least one other reviewer that this really should have had a running commentary available, ideally from Will Smith. It also begs for a "making of" extra feature.

One other sorta-negative comment relates to the alternate ending, which I haven't seen yet but I'm currently watching the disk 2 version which includes that. I'm not aware of any changes up to where I currently am (the dream-flashback scene in which the bridges are destroyed). So was it really necessary to use the second disk for a repeat of the entire movie but with the other ending, rather than adding that as an extra scene on the first disk, similar to how deleted scenes are typically handled? Maybe it would have created problems with viewers' sense of the story flow? It certainly would have left disk 2 free for the kinds of extras we would have liked to have seen.

Based on the book by Richard Matheson, I Am Legend is the story of Robert Neville (Will Smith), sole survivor of a plague that, originally, was supposed to be a miracle cure for cancer three years before. Instead, most of the world died at the hands of the plague. Others mutated into bloodthirsty vampiric creatures; only a small percentage of humankind remained immune to the disease.

All alone in New York, virologist Neville tries to find a cure and "fix" the problem that stole the lives of everyone he knew and everyone he loved, while also trying to survive in a city infested with the infected and ferocious monsters.

Straight from the start you know you're in for a ride.

An empty city, overgrown and broken down.

A lone guy speeding through the streets in a fancy car, weapon at his side.

Animals prowling the streets, free of their cages.

The lock up.

The screams.

The howls.

Yeah, good stuff.

The intense feeling of atmosphere was what drew me into this flick. Immediately isolation sets in right from the first frame as we see Neville trying to maintain a normal life in a dead city (renting movies, talking to mannequins, keeping a routine), his eyes washed with pain yet underscored with determination to keep on going. This is a one-man show and I haven't seen it done so well since Cast Away (one of my favorite movies) years and years ago.

No complaints about Will Smith here and he's done a good job over his career to make you forget about the loud-mouthed homeboy he played in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Plus, did you see the guy in this film? He's ripped! Shredded. But, I guess, you'd have to be if you lived a world where vampire-zombie-human things prowled the streets and your life could be in jeopardy at the drop of a hat if you weren't too careful.

Which brings me to the monsters in question. Overall, well done. Creepy skin, no hair, loud growls, amazing agility and intensely vicious. Yeah, killer. Obviously they were CGI so they did look a tad rubbery and there were a few moments where it felt I was looking at a cartoon. Thankfully, those moments happened so fast and the action was so intense that I quickly forgot my quibble and moved on.

My only thing was the ending. Now, I never read the book so I can't compare, but it ended too abruptly and really lost its post-apocalyptic feel in the last five minutes or so. Sort of a Disney ending, which didn't fit in with what was a gloomy story up until that point.

Regardless, if someone asked me what I thought of this film, I'd tell them to go see it.

It's that good.

I really like Will Smith and I think this is one of his best movies. Some of the parts were a little slow but most of it was edge of your seat. I love the part where Will goes into a dark building looking for his dog with justa little flashlight on his gun. This movie is a must watch.