I Am Legend
Dec. 27th, 2007 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annundrielMom, Dad, and I saw I Am Legend tonight. It was excellent. Having read the book over the summer in anticipation of the movie, I wasn't sure what to expect from this adaptation. But, wow, was I impressed.
When I finished reading the book, the first thing I did was turn to Mom and say, "There's no way they're going to let that happen to Will Smith in the end." And I was kind of right. In the book, Robert Neville really is the last human on Earth. Here it turns out he's not and humanity has a chance to flourish again because of him. Originally, I thought that the title would lose its meaning and power if the ending was changed. That's were I was wrong. The movie ending totally worked for me. The whole movie totally worked for me. Intense from beginning to end, completely involving. I loved it.
Three specific things:
- Sound and silence. One of the first things I noticed when the movie started was the lack of music (by which I mean the movie's score) and generally background noise. I thought they used this absence really effectively to convey the otherworldly loneliness Neville would be feeling. Kind of like the Buffy episode "The Body" where there is no score, just the characters. We become so used to the usual background music in movies and television that we notice it when it's missing, or at least I do, and that can set us a little off-center.
Which reminds me of the point Dad made at dinner about the camera work. He said he would have liked some wider shots thrown in with all of the close-ups. I pointed out that the less we can see around the characters, the more suspense we're in.
- Butterflies. I was kind of tickled in the end when the butterflies ended up playing a part. I like to look at backgrounds and sets during movies (and I just long to go through characters apartments on TV shows). So while Neville was chasing the deer at the beginning, I was reading what signs I could. At one point he passed a bunch of fliers that read on the top, "God still loves you" and on the bottom, "Do you love God?" Most of the fliers had what looked to be a picture of a globe or something in the middle, but the one on the top had been torn or painted or something so that it looked like a butterfly. I remember thinking that was kind of odd. And then the butterfly while he's picking corn. And his daughter's insistence that he watch her and her butterfly. I kept noticing them and when they ended up playing a part, especially tying back to "God still loves you," I was very pleased.
- Will Smith. Holy crap. I knew he was good, always liked him, but I had no idea he could be that good. I mean, sure, he did the strong yet vulnerable thing in The Pursuit of Happyness and was great. But there was something about Neville's slow, emotional falling apart that really just broke my heart. The scene in the video store after Sam's death? Whoa. I just completely believed him throughout the movie.
When I finished reading the book, the first thing I did was turn to Mom and say, "There's no way they're going to let that happen to Will Smith in the end." And I was kind of right. In the book, Robert Neville really is the last human on Earth. Here it turns out he's not and humanity has a chance to flourish again because of him. Originally, I thought that the title would lose its meaning and power if the ending was changed. That's were I was wrong. The movie ending totally worked for me. The whole movie totally worked for me. Intense from beginning to end, completely involving. I loved it.
Three specific things:
- Sound and silence. One of the first things I noticed when the movie started was the lack of music (by which I mean the movie's score) and generally background noise. I thought they used this absence really effectively to convey the otherworldly loneliness Neville would be feeling. Kind of like the Buffy episode "The Body" where there is no score, just the characters. We become so used to the usual background music in movies and television that we notice it when it's missing, or at least I do, and that can set us a little off-center.
Which reminds me of the point Dad made at dinner about the camera work. He said he would have liked some wider shots thrown in with all of the close-ups. I pointed out that the less we can see around the characters, the more suspense we're in.
- Butterflies. I was kind of tickled in the end when the butterflies ended up playing a part. I like to look at backgrounds and sets during movies (and I just long to go through characters apartments on TV shows). So while Neville was chasing the deer at the beginning, I was reading what signs I could. At one point he passed a bunch of fliers that read on the top, "God still loves you" and on the bottom, "Do you love God?" Most of the fliers had what looked to be a picture of a globe or something in the middle, but the one on the top had been torn or painted or something so that it looked like a butterfly. I remember thinking that was kind of odd. And then the butterfly while he's picking corn. And his daughter's insistence that he watch her and her butterfly. I kept noticing them and when they ended up playing a part, especially tying back to "God still loves you," I was very pleased.
- Will Smith. Holy crap. I knew he was good, always liked him, but I had no idea he could be that good. I mean, sure, he did the strong yet vulnerable thing in The Pursuit of Happyness and was great. But there was something about Neville's slow, emotional falling apart that really just broke my heart. The scene in the video store after Sam's death? Whoa. I just completely believed him throughout the movie.
