I am Legend
Jan. 2nd, 2008 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackI went with Tim and Rachel (they say it has Zombies for Tim and Will Smith for Rachel, I'm not sure what that says about us :))
It is much as you would expect. I've never read (or heard of) the book -- the feeling I get is that the book was quite psychological, and the movie was quite a good adaption, but Will Smithed up a bit.
In brief, a virus is altered to spread a cure for cancer, but accidentally turns people into vampires/zombies. Now much of the world is wiped out. He was a doctor looking to reverse the effect, and then one of the few immune -- he doesn't know if any of the other immune survived. He lives in New York, ground zero, hiding during the night, and in the day, surviving and trying to make a cure.
The physics, biology, ecology, utility infrastructure, information technology, military command structure, and continuity are of course often silly, but it all strikes the right note.
The first half of the film is following Will Smith around deserted new york, tenderly renting DVDs chatting to shop dummies and dog, and failing to hunt down deer in a sports car. It all feels leisurely but exciting, that you could watch it forever.
At one point he captures a zombie to try a potential cure on, and as he's reading all the vital statistics of the patient into a recorder, I kept expecting him to say "Height, 1.6. CGI: poor. Body temp: 39...". The zombie effect is quite good, but because it doesn't look as perfectly real as the real actors, the zombies look more like something else than infected humans and dogs.
Then things spiral out of control, he narrowly escapes one nest of vampires, which is very tense, then is ambushed, his dog dies, and he nearly dies, but a woman and child who hear his radio broadcasts come through, save him, find his cure works, and are sent on to the last haven whilst he holds off the zombies who tracked them all back to his pad.
As introspective Will Smith zombie flicks go, it's pretty good. It's not quite my thing, but it does it very well: funny and touching in everyday life, tense when being attacked, evoking the surreality when things change, and finally cautiously uplifting.
One thing bothered me. The zombies seemed just bright enough to set traps, and have one direct the others to attack, and to hunt down the one human rather than living off all the deer and lions roaming the streets of long island. If they're reduced to animal level intelligence, it's clear why they're dangerous when you run across them, but not why they coordinate to storm his house. If they're still intelligent, even if they've lost all human emotions for empathy, etc, it's not clear why they're so implacable but never negotiate. Does anyone know the book goes into more detail?
ETA: And you store the log of your experiments to save mankind on six redundant hard disks on the same pile on your desk. I admit I'm sometimes lax, but if you go to the trouble of making that many, didn't it occur to you you might be attacked by zombies? :(
It is much as you would expect. I've never read (or heard of) the book -- the feeling I get is that the book was quite psychological, and the movie was quite a good adaption, but Will Smithed up a bit.
In brief, a virus is altered to spread a cure for cancer, but accidentally turns people into vampires/zombies. Now much of the world is wiped out. He was a doctor looking to reverse the effect, and then one of the few immune -- he doesn't know if any of the other immune survived. He lives in New York, ground zero, hiding during the night, and in the day, surviving and trying to make a cure.
The physics, biology, ecology, utility infrastructure, information technology, military command structure, and continuity are of course often silly, but it all strikes the right note.
The first half of the film is following Will Smith around deserted new york, tenderly renting DVDs chatting to shop dummies and dog, and failing to hunt down deer in a sports car. It all feels leisurely but exciting, that you could watch it forever.
At one point he captures a zombie to try a potential cure on, and as he's reading all the vital statistics of the patient into a recorder, I kept expecting him to say "Height, 1.6. CGI: poor. Body temp: 39...". The zombie effect is quite good, but because it doesn't look as perfectly real as the real actors, the zombies look more like something else than infected humans and dogs.
Then things spiral out of control, he narrowly escapes one nest of vampires, which is very tense, then is ambushed, his dog dies, and he nearly dies, but a woman and child who hear his radio broadcasts come through, save him, find his cure works, and are sent on to the last haven whilst he holds off the zombies who tracked them all back to his pad.
As introspective Will Smith zombie flicks go, it's pretty good. It's not quite my thing, but it does it very well: funny and touching in everyday life, tense when being attacked, evoking the surreality when things change, and finally cautiously uplifting.
One thing bothered me. The zombies seemed just bright enough to set traps, and have one direct the others to attack, and to hunt down the one human rather than living off all the deer and lions roaming the streets of long island. If they're reduced to animal level intelligence, it's clear why they're dangerous when you run across them, but not why they coordinate to storm his house. If they're still intelligent, even if they've lost all human emotions for empathy, etc, it's not clear why they're so implacable but never negotiate. Does anyone know the book goes into more detail?
ETA: And you store the log of your experiments to save mankind on six redundant hard disks on the same pile on your desk. I admit I'm sometimes lax, but if you go to the trouble of making that many, didn't it occur to you you might be attacked by zombies? :(
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 12:52 am (UTC)It's not clear to me how he knew that Will Smith cared about that particular mannequin though, as he could have only have observed that in daylight. Perhaps he found the mannequin in the city and just connected the dots.
Presumably they don't want to negotiate because of their violent nature, and as they view normal humans as being a different (enemy) species. OTOH perhaps the alpha male was intelligent enough to negotiate, and might have done so had Will Smith not captured his girlfriend.
I thought it was excellent, but was let down by the ending. Apparently in the original cut he doesn't die and they all drive out of the city together. The test audiences hated this so much that they made this slightly darker ending. I believe in the book he dies without achieving anything.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 01:50 am (UTC)Ah, thanks, that sounds likely.
just the alpha male zombie
Ah, I see. That does make sense. It hadn't occurred to me that they had enough feelings to have leaders or girlfriends (or intelligence for even copying traps) -- it still bothers me in fact, but I think I see what they're going for.
It's not clear to me how he knew that Will Smith cared about that particular mannequin though
*shrug* I'm not positive, he cared about many, if they could smell he visited the shop, that's the sort of thing that can slip by as sloppiness without much objection from me, even if it doesn't hang together really.
I thought it was excellent, but was let down by the ending.
We commented that it was a little sudden; we felt like we'd watched the first two acts, and then seen the climax, but missed the third act in the middle. But I didn't really object to the resolution. All surviving would be a little twee[1], but I'm not objecting to happiness much. All dying would be very depressing. Appropriate, but I wouldn't like it myself.
[1] Though, woman and daughter survived till night in cupboard, couldn't Will Smith have left the grenade outside and joined them? OTOH, why didn't more zombies come down afterwards and squat in the cellar during the day?
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 01:58 am (UTC)I've heard two explanations for this. One is bad, one is good.
The bad one is that it would have been too difficult / risky to have tried to get in the safe and throw the grenade, then close the door to the safe in time. If he had done that he would have put everyone at risk.
The good explanation is that he tried to kill himself the night before, everything he loved (his wife, child, and now even his dog) had been killed. He was depressed, suicidal. The only reason he had to survive was to create the cure, which he'd now done.
OTOH, why didn't more zombies come down afterwards and squat in the cellar during the day?
I think there are two possibilities. If you subscribe to the 'alpha male is far more intelligent than the average zombie and is leading them' theory, then with him dead they'd presumably disperse. The other possibility is that if you were a zombie higher up in the building and a grenade went off you'd want to run away, especially if the place (building?) was on fire, and / or there were flaming zombies running out of the lab.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 11:36 am (UTC)That makes sense.
and / or there were flaming zombies running out of the lab.
Did you see the quotes from the roleplaying campaign I played last term? Several began:
'I run past them, or around them.'
'I'd highly recommend running around them, they being (a) flaming and (b) zombies.'
no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 12:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 01:34 pm (UTC)I can't remember if I transferred any of the quotes to my quotes file. The other notable was:
"Well, it's a full round spell, so it's probably bad. Let me rephrase. THE UNARMED WOMAN! SHOOT THE UNARMED WOMAN!"