I Am Legend

David Jimerson said:
You mean Courtman?
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?

I had a friend who interned at Scott Free in the late '90's. He mentioned that they were developing the project with Ridley set to helm. I think it was supposed to star Schwarzenegger too, but it was shelved for budget reasons I think. Later on there was a rumor that Rob Bowman (X Files) was going to resurrect the project. There've probably been a number of directors attached while it was being developed.
 
David Jimerson said:
Courtman was a character in the book who was sort of a leader of the vampires.
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Sorry, misunderstood you. Yeah, I was referring to Courtman. I read the book about 10 years ago so the name slipped me and I'm not one to run off to wikipedia or google just to get things straight. ;)
 
Elton said:
100% agreed.

I thought so much of the "virtual NY" CG looked great and I pretty much bought into it, but once the creatures came out, suspension of disbelief vanished.

On another note--I think it's too bad they deviated so much from the novel. In the book, Neville has an adversarial relationship with the leader of the hive that added a great depth to the story. In this movie it's nothing but scary boo moments from anonymous nothing drones.
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I have to agree with both these points. To go back to The Omega Man once again, it is the reason the cheesy mutant/zombies worked better for me that those dreadful cg monsters. Intelligence. It's much scarier than just howling beast.

I hadn't read the source material so I didn't know what Neville's adversaries were like. I'd only heard they were vampiric. I'm glad to hear they had some intelligence.
 
CG dark seekers were lame. I did feel the adversarial relationship between Neville and the lead Dark Seeker, but not as much as I would have liked.

As someone said before, up until Anna showed up I was really into it, the last part was it's weakest I felt.

I never read the book or saw Omega man, but have always enjoyed the post apocolyptic (sp?) stories.

I liked that Nevilles character had some crazy moments... really worked. The trap set by the dark seekers was a bit obvious I thought.

In all, I thought it was intense, really good story, and good flick for the most part. Worth my $7.
 
kyledroid said:
The only Will Smith movie I ever cared for was Independence Day. I guess he peaked after his first movie...
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He did peak after his first movie, in his third movie.....Six Degrees Of Separation. He came up for air one more time in Ali.
If you liked him in something as pedestrian as Independence Day, you'll like him in anything.
 
The zombies looked like copies of frankenstein. I was pretty disappointed. good story, & acting though. overall it was entertaining.
 
"trap set by the darkseekers"...hmm are you so sure about that?

So Will Smith is driving. He looks out the window and sees the Fred mannequin. It turns its head and looks back at him. Will Smith freaks out, shoots up the whole block, then gets caught in the rope trap.

This strongly suggests that he is losing his sanity.

He remains calmas he tries to escape from the trap, and eventually cuts himself loose. You'd think if someone else set the trap, he might be more panicked. But he responds slowly, and frustrated, as if he is disappointed that he got caught in his own trap.

Later, he uses another mannequin trap on the pier to lure out the darkseekers so he can plow them down in his car. So obviously, any mumbo jumbo argument about THEM setting mannequin traps is incorrect because they are still too stupid to figure it out.

As for Will Smith's wife and kid, I thought it was obvious that they died when it cut 1 frame before their helicopter was about to crash into another helicopter.

I give the movie 2 1/2 out of 4 stars. The whole dog/last companion in the world aspect worked great for me, and that was half the film. The other half was pretty lame.
 
DerrickTempleton said:
"trap set by the darkseekers"...hmm are you so sure about that?

So Will Smith is driving. He looks out the window and sees the Fred mannequin. It turns its head and looks back at him. Will Smith freaks out, shoots up the whole block, then gets caught in the rope trap.

This strongly suggests that he is losing his sanity.

He remains calmas he tries to escape from the trap, and eventually cuts himself loose. You'd think if someone else set the trap, he might be more panicked. But he responds slowly, and frustrated, as if he is disappointed that he got caught in his own trap.

Later, he uses another mannequin trap on the pier to lure out the darkseekers so he can plow them down in his car. So obviously, any mumbo jumbo argument about THEM setting mannequin traps is incorrect because they are still too stupid to figure it out.

As for Will Smith's wife and kid, I thought it was obvious that they died when it cut 1 frame before their helicopter was about to crash into another helicopter.

I give the movie 2 1/2 out of 4 stars. The whole dog/last companion in the world aspect worked great for me, and that was half the film. The other half was pretty lame.
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Okay, I hadn't looked at it as if WS had set the trap and got caught in it. Possible. Not clear cut. There were enough holes in the movie that the filmmaker could have ****ed up and just missed it. The wife and child definitely died in the helicopter. He had to kill the dog. Damn. That was the final straw, now he has to kill himself. I would have thought that that might have been the reaction to seeing his family die, not the dog. And then he's miraculously saved (can you say: Deux ex machina). Give me a break. This movie set new levels of suckiness.

Now, he's saved but he's pissed because he was saving the bacon. That was just the "Will Smith moment."

And for the good or bad points of this movie that was the problem. This was a Will Smith vehicle and I never forgot that it was Will Smith as I was watching it. He never disappeared into his part so he didn't accomplish his goal as an actor. As a "movie star" I guess he did what he needed to do, ala Tom Cruise. But as an actor, he just didn't get there.
 
Blaine said:
This was a Will Smith vehicle and I never forgot that it was Will Smith as I was watching it. He never disappeared into his part so he didn't accomplish his goal as an actor. As a "movie star" I guess he did what he needed to do, ala Tom Cruise. But as an actor, he just didn't get there.
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This is my problem with casting "stars" in anything... especially in horror movies. I'd rather see unknowns.
 
HorseFilms said:
This is my problem with casting "stars" in anything... especially in horror movies. I'd rather see unknowns.
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I understand what you are saying, but isn't there a middle ground?

Wouldn't someone like Thomas Jane have been better for the part?
 
I dunno The Mist was practically the same movie, and it sucked just as much. But yeah I do like Tom Jane better in general. 28 Weeks Later reigns supreme though, great casting, great fx, great execution.
 
DerrickTempleton said:
"trap set by the darkseekers"...hmm are you so sure about that?

So Will Smith is driving. He looks out the window and sees the Fred mannequin. It turns its head and looks back at him. Will Smith freaks out, shoots up the whole block, then gets caught in the rope trap.

This strongly suggests that he is losing his sanity.

He remains calmas he tries to escape from the trap, and eventually cuts himself loose. You'd think if someone else set the trap, he might be more panicked. But he responds slowly, and frustrated, as if he is disappointed that he got caught in his own trap.

Later, he uses another mannequin trap on the pier to lure out the darkseekers so he can plow them down in his car. So obviously, any mumbo jumbo argument about THEM setting mannequin traps is incorrect because they are still too stupid to figure it out.

As for Will Smith's wife and kid, I thought it was obvious that they died when it cut 1 frame before their helicopter was about to crash into another helicopter.

I give the movie 2 1/2 out of 4 stars. The whole dog/last companion in the world aspect worked great for me, and that was half the film. The other half was pretty lame.
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I can see why there would be some confusion...

He was both losing his mind and the creatures set a trap.

He uses that snare trap to catch the female creature earlier in the movie...its implied that he has done this before...catching them in that way...so they sort of learned through osmosis and beat him at his own game.

Two ideas that didnt come through very well in this version...

is that the girl that he kidnaped is sort of the girlfriend of the alpha male he encounters...

and the creatures do have something of an intelligence...there are a few shots that support this.

also he didnt really have time to react to the idea of them setting the trap...he was knocked out and when he wakes up there is no time to do anything but escape before the sun went down.
 
DeSica said:
Wouldn't someone like Thomas Jane have been better for the part?
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I think it's kind of a stretch to call him a "star." I had to sit and think about it for while before I knew who you were talking about. So, yes, he would've been much better.
 
The perfect compromise would've been Christian Bale.

Sorry, he's my favorite actor working today. He could've carried the film, easily.
 
I actually didnt mind Will Smith in the role at all, thought he was pretty good. My issue was with the material he had to work with. The movie stood still and remained maddeningly vague throughout. As someone else mentioned already, it could have been so much more...but just wasn't. It was flat...no arc at all in the story.

They could have given the backstory of the wife and daughter at the beginning, in a linear manner, and it would have given us a much better feel for how lonely and isolated he felt at the "Three Years Later" mark. Kind of like in Castaway with Tom Hanks. They didnt start him off on the island, isolated, at the beginning of the movie. Its hard to put together a believable character with no opportunity for dialogue or interaction with other people to establish who he is.

eh...I'm quitting here. There's too much to gripe about with this one and I'm pretty sure they arent going to read this and do re-shoots or return to the editing room. LOL!
 
HorseFilms said:
I think it's kind of a stretch to call him a "star." I had to sit and think about it for while before I knew who you were talking about. So, yes, he would've been much better.
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That was the whole point....he is a good solid actor for this type of role, but doesn't have a name that will overshadow it. You want a believable rugged guy in a film like this, not a star collecting a check.

Bale might have been good, too...but he is a bit young.

I had a hard time coming up with a guy in hi slate 30s or early 40s who would fit that role well...but Jane was great in Stander, and was okay in The Punisher, so I figured he fit the bill.

What about someone like Aaron Eckhart? Jason Patric?
 
I gotta say i liked this movie. Didn't think it was AMAZING, but it had a quiet integrity to it. They really put the time in to make you feel Neville's isolation and mental disintegration and build genuine suspense. The CG vampires weren't the best I'd ever seen but I felt the film was about more than just the monsters. Wasn't expecting much from this and was pleasantly surprised. That said, I'll probably have forgotten about it in a week.
 
Imagine this. I sat through all 100 minutes of this movie with a guy very audibly wheezing in an out of a tube that went through his throat in the theater. We sat as far away as we could to him, but to no avail, it was loud as sh*t.

But I still liked this film. The CG was lame but it was interesting to see Will Smith carry this film on his shoulders, and progress as a dramatic actor.

I recognized the writer's name in the credits ... Akiva Goldsman, cause he's in my 101 tips for screenwriters book. I always thought, "Why the hell would I take tips from the guy who wrote Batman and Robin?" but then I found out he wrote A Beautiful Mind. Who woulda thought?
 
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