Happy Holidays, one and all =D I hope you're all enjoying your vacations, and I had the good fortune to put it to good use for you, our loyal readers (I think), by giving a review about the most talked about movie for this Christmas season: I am Legend.
I am Legend
As a whole, if you watched the movie without reading the book, you probably will enjoy it as another take in the "28 days later" pseudo-plague/virus survival movie, but if you read the book and expected something close to it....you will be quite disappointed. I'd like to caution any readers that don't like the plot line spoiled to watch the movie first (or read the book, always a first for this generation) before reading any further.

If you don't know already, I am Legend is derived from a novel written by Richard Matheson detailing a post apocalyptic world where a virus has changed a majority of the world population to vampires (that's right, you heard me, VAMPIRES!), with all but one remaining human named Robert Neville. The novel basically tries to talk about a scientific basis of why vampirism happens, as well as the social breakdown of a person who is socially isolated.

When we first start up the film, Will Smith started immediately with a dog who plays as an anchor for his sanity throughout the majority of the film.
Will Smith and his dog
The problem here is that it fails very much in developing Smith's attachment to the dog as much as if he were to have found the dog during his period of isolation from any other human being. If he was required to trap the dog and house break it, it gives a myriad amount of options for the director to work on the bond that Smith crafts with the dog, and give a much stronger emotional emphasis to when Smith had to put down the dog later. Some may argue that as the dog was a memento from his daughter, it would have as strong an emotional resonance, if not more, but I believe that without the sheer adversity of force training the dog, the amount of attachment is less since the amount of effort to get the dog is much less.

Next, the house lock-down and constant wrist-watch alarm in the movie was great for emphasizing the change in time, but it lacked one very obvious thing; IMPORTANCE. Only one scene in the entire movie reflected the sheer NEED to get home on time, and it was only due to the fact that Smith as Neville was knocked out for that long. The movie also shows that Smith as Neville constantly throws his scent off from where he lives, which means that his house was not being constantly attacked (until the last climactic scene) unlike that in the book, which does not make the vampires (which got changed into Dark-siders) appear as terribly menacing. It takes away yet another daily chore Smith as Nevers would have done which would've made sense in the movie: constantly fixing and upgrading his house so that it can withstand dark-sider attacks each night.

I really think there is a major controversy about the Vampires i.e. dark-siders being portrayed in the film. CG-wise, they looked very much like the Mummy from the movie The MUMMY. I don't know if they're trying to save on the budget or something, but it doesn't make the dark-siders look unique nor increasingly menacing. The hives setup was a really nice touch, and Smith as Neville going in to save the dog was a very memorable scene, but the questions arise when he returns to that particular hive to obtain a test subject for his serum; when he captures the female, a male dark-sider pops up in the bright sun and hisses at Smith as Neville. Smith later in the film deduces that this action shows that the Dark-siders have lost all sense of humanity and devolved down to an animalistic state. Yet, I get more of the impression that the male dark-sider was trying to reclaim his mate/prize/territory which was the female captured dark-sider, and followed by the trap set by the same said dark-sider later on the film, I would hazard to say that the dark-siders were very much capable of rational thought.

This then leads to a major gripe I had with the film; the end. From how the dark-siders were showing a pack mentality at attacking the Neville's house and the appearance of the two other "humans", I assumed that they would be following the general storyline where Neville would be captured by dark-siders who are humans that have adapted and not turn mindless, but instead started a new society, and are trying to bring Smith as Neville down because he was
a threat to them stealing people as test subjects. HOWEVER...both "humans" did turn out to be actual humans, rather than the rational dark-siders that were sent out to test Smith as Neville to see whether or not he was a threat to their kind, and the actual creation of a vaccine followed by the sacrifice Smith as Neville made blowing himself and the dark-siders in the house up letting the two other humans survive to join up to the remaining humans in Vermont removes a crucial plot twist in the original novel.
Smith as Neville's character had an important choice to make in the entire movie at this point, and that was the sacrifice. However, the movie changed the complete reasoning of why his sacrifice was legendary; from taking his life in the novel and dying as a veritable LEGEND due to his boogieman status to the vampires(can run around in the day and kills vampires when they're the weakest) to giving up his life to ensuring the safety of humanity with the cure for the virus. I may be nihilistic about this, but I do think the moral choice between accepting death as the last of a race and making way for the next race is a much more complex and intricate storyline than the no-brainer it is dying with guarantees that your death will save mankind. It just seems like such a cop out from the potential the movie had.

Last in my major gripes section is the sheer religious push the movie takes in the form of the Anna near the end of the movie and how it ends; broken down it says that because Anna believed that all that happened is God's plan she ended up surviving through the whole thing and finding the promised land, and the butterfly symbology used was God's way of telling Smith as Nevers that Anna being there is all in the process of Smith as Neville's end goal of fixing the dark-sider virus. It is corny, sentimental bull that seriously lessens credibility of the movie as a whole to do what? Encourage religious fundamentalists to watch it? Serious negative points for this.

What I did really like about the film, though, was the times where Smith as Neville goes out to the stores and acted as if the puppets were actual people that can respond. This was where the movie I think brought out the emotional loneliness the book was striving at, including the sheer irrationality when he found Fred in a different place from where Fred was usually placed.

I lament that the film leaves much that can be worked on to make it a masterful and legendary movie of its own, but do give it props for making a decent movie that you will not feel gypped for paying 10 bucks to watch.