Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: I Am Legend ::
by William the Bloody
The not-too-distant future: A doctor has come up with a miracle cure for cancer. She has developed a communicable, viral antibody which has so far proven 100% effective in all human trials. However, not long after, this cure develops some unforeseen side affects. People start bleeding out of their eyes, hair comes out in clumps, all of the colour drains out of their complexions, they get extremely irritated by UV light, and begin acting terrifyingly violent. These aren't only the people treated with the cancer cure, no, this cure is contagious through the air and blood, so in a densely populated area like New York, it begins spreading at an alarming rate. The government's solution is to evacuate all uncontaminated people from the large cities and then seal them off. Our main character is Dr. Robert Neville, a brilliant phlebotomist, who even though uninfected, refuses to leave New York because he believes the secrets to uncovering a cure to this disastrous plague lie somewhere within "ground zero." There are some people who are immune to the air borne version of the virus, but not the blood borne, and any bite or scratch from a contaminated person will poison them as well, and very few are immune to both types, as is the case with Dr. Neville. As time passes within the now isolated New York, all of the people in the city have been infected and mutated into bloodthirsty fiends who only come out at night to hunt and Dr. Neville is the last man left, desperately trying to find that elusive cure, and maybe, just maybe someone else out there who has also managed to survive.
The Good: I am a fan of the post-apocalyptic film, but I have high expectations of such things. This movie really nailed the depiction of a desolate and vacant New York City. Some of the opening shots of completely still city streets overgrown with grass and small plants were genuinely eerie. They really took this aspect to the limit in showing the lead character driving golf balls off of an aircraft carrier and unsettling views of the famous borough bridges blown up in the background. There were also some fine touches in the outside shots such as upcoming films which do not exist (the Superman/Batman movie, for one) and the price of gasoline being over six dollars at the pump. For a movie with bloodthirsty creatures, it did have its scary moments, most notably one scene where Neville needs to go inside a darkened building in order to retrieve his dog, and he just knows that it is crawling with creatures, if only he can get in and out quietly enough... At first, the casting of Will Smith as the lead seemed like an odd choice to me, but when I got to theater and saw what other sorts of people were there to see it, it made sense. Smith has an established fan base which I believe successfully drew in people to see this film who otherwise would not have done so. Don't get me wrong, I like him as an actor and he did do well here. He had some wonderful bits of acting in this film including the parts where he talks to his dog and some mannequins he had set up to populate a video rental store at one point (a nod and a wink to Omega Man, if you ask me), but especially the part when he finds one of the mannequins moved and the scene in his lab afterwards. I really enjoyed the scientific aspects of the disease and Neville's attempts at finding a cure. It felt like they really did their homework for it, and judging by the number of doctors listed in the end credits, I'd say they did.
The Bad: First of all, for shame Will Smith. Casting your own daughter? Really?? Knock that shit off. Okay, next we need to discuss the fact that this film was based on a book, and there were at least two other film adaptations of said book before this one. The book is also called "I Am Legend" and the two other motion pictures were titled The Last Man on Earth and Omega Man. It is pretty disappointing that the most loyal film of the three is Last Man, and yet this most recent film gets to be named after the book and not Last Man. I can let this movie get away with changing the setting to New York, but they also messed with the nature of the creatures and the whole reason the story is even called "I Am Legend" in the first place. One of the points of the book (sort of) was to come up with a scientific explanation for vampires, and they could still talk and had intelligence. This movie pretty much had the creatures as rage-infected wild beasts who had the intelligence of higher animals and pack instincts (and yet one of them manages to set a fairly elaborate snare trap? don't even get me started in on that business). I kept hoping throughout the movie that at one point one of the creatures would speak, and surprise the shit out of Dr. Neville and everyone in the audience as well (when he's trapped upside down in his car would have been the perfect time, if you ask me), but sadly this did not happen. I don't want to ruin the ending of the book by telling you why it is called "I Am Legend", but I will say that it was a Twilight Zone-esque twist ending, which the movie definitely did not have, and I was pretty disappointed that this version ended on a "hopeful" note, and is the only version I know to do so.
As a stand alone movie, it wasn't too bad. It had some really great city shots and the tension and emotion in some scenes were really there.
B+
As a movie trying to be "I Am Legend" but clearly isn't.
D+
