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 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!"