What Can I say about this movie. I've been looking forward to seeing it for quite some time now. I even had to wait an extra month, as it didn't release in NZ until this week. This movie is based on what is arguably the best vampire story ever written, "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheston. It's a great, great book, a novella really, that, like the first three quarters of the movie, can not be more highly recommended. I really liked this movie. Had I never read the book, had I never seen what the ending originally was while I worked at the same place the effects were being done, I might even have loved this movie. It pains me to say how disappointed I was at the ending, only because of how good it was up until that point. It was like watching the defensive replacement at second base trying to score an inside tha park, game winning, home run in the bottom of the ninth, only to trip over third base and get tagged out to end the game. They were that close, that close, to making a classic. An epic monster movie. One for the ages. The worst part was how it was just tacked on. They spent so much time setting up the right ending. The book ending. All the little things about how smart the vampires could be, how social, how they were learning, only to end up with a weak, bullshit, feel good, Hollywood ending. Oh the beginning of this movie is so good. Sooooooo good. I love that Neville had decorated his house with Van Goghs. I loved the lack of a score, it made the Bob Marley tunes that much more powerful. You're totally sucked in to the isolation that Neville must have felt. It's very powerful. I mean, this movie got me to cry, and that's crazy. Not that I'm emotionally crippled or anything, I just very, very rarely cry at movies ... even more rarely when I'm actually watching them in the movie theatre. It can scare the crap out of you. When Neville follows his dog that follows a deer into an abandoned building, it doesn't get much better that that, but it's a compelling, emotionally powerful movie for 80 minutes ... and then ... silly zombie attacks, pandering to the religious right and a tacked on, crappy ending. So disappointing.
The effects are competent. I particularly liked a lot of the animation. A lot of the work making Ney York look decrepit was very nice as well. All in all, if you've never read the book, you'll probably like the movie, but I can't get past the ending.
Three stars.
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