Monday, December 17, 2007
So I had this great idea for FHD - how I wanted it to look, how I wanted it to operate, what I wanted to feature. Then I set it up and...I kind of hated it.
Welcome to Plan B, which I am much happier with.
As of this posting, everything is up and operational! If you run into links that don't work, please let me know.
Welcome to Plan B, which I am much happier with.
As of this posting, everything is up and operational! If you run into links that don't work, please let me know.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
On Friday night, I saw I Am Legend at the local IMAX theater. To be honest, the real draw of going to see that movie at that location was the inclusion of the first six minutes of the upcoming Batman movie, but I didn't pay $11 just for six minutes of footage. I really did want to see I Am Legend.
Overall, those six minutes of Batman overshadowed the feature.
I like the idea of I Am Legend: last man on Earth, working to survive with only his faithful canine as company (naturally). Unfortunately, I think this movie had too many ideas and it was unable to figure out what to do with them all. Is it a character study of a man on the edge or an adrenaline-fueled fight to withstand the boogeymen? I don't think one is necessarily exclusive of the other, but I Am Legend failed to pull it off.
To be fair, Will Smith gives a great performance as a man struggling to keep it together. He's lonely and stressed out and clearly very close to losing it. But he's also a wanna-be action hero, trapping and killing and defending his territory from zombies. (Yeah, zombies; people infected with a virus that makes them hyper-aggressive - I feel like I've seen this movie before...) I can't decide if it's the action that disrupts and ruins the more meaningful slow parts or the slow parts that keep the action from being as good as it could be.
The zombies themselves were incredibly disappointing: fleshy, screaming CGI villains reminiscent of what we saw in The Mummy years ago. (I was waiting for locusts to come streaming out of their much-too-wide mouths.) Animating the zombies seemed unnecessary and overall unconvincing. In fact, a lot of the CGI was lackluster. The lions were clearly not lions, the deer seemed to be animated by someone unfamiliar with deer. Have I become spoiled by other movies with gorgeous, near seamless effects? You bet. Welcome to 2007.
There's a lot going on in the movie (solitude, zombies, trickery, mannequins, dogs, faith, experimentation, responsibility), and while nothing ends up a complete failure, nothing is particularly wonderful, either.
Ultimately, I Am Legend is miss-able. FHD gives it 2 kibbles out of 5.
(Don't take your hound to this one - violence against dogs abounds!)
Overall, those six minutes of Batman overshadowed the feature.
I like the idea of I Am Legend: last man on Earth, working to survive with only his faithful canine as company (naturally). Unfortunately, I think this movie had too many ideas and it was unable to figure out what to do with them all. Is it a character study of a man on the edge or an adrenaline-fueled fight to withstand the boogeymen? I don't think one is necessarily exclusive of the other, but I Am Legend failed to pull it off.
To be fair, Will Smith gives a great performance as a man struggling to keep it together. He's lonely and stressed out and clearly very close to losing it. But he's also a wanna-be action hero, trapping and killing and defending his territory from zombies. (Yeah, zombies; people infected with a virus that makes them hyper-aggressive - I feel like I've seen this movie before...) I can't decide if it's the action that disrupts and ruins the more meaningful slow parts or the slow parts that keep the action from being as good as it could be.
The zombies themselves were incredibly disappointing: fleshy, screaming CGI villains reminiscent of what we saw in The Mummy years ago. (I was waiting for locusts to come streaming out of their much-too-wide mouths.) Animating the zombies seemed unnecessary and overall unconvincing. In fact, a lot of the CGI was lackluster. The lions were clearly not lions, the deer seemed to be animated by someone unfamiliar with deer. Have I become spoiled by other movies with gorgeous, near seamless effects? You bet. Welcome to 2007.
There's a lot going on in the movie (solitude, zombies, trickery, mannequins, dogs, faith, experimentation, responsibility), and while nothing ends up a complete failure, nothing is particularly wonderful, either.
Ultimately, I Am Legend is miss-able. FHD gives it 2 kibbles out of 5.
(Don't take your hound to this one - violence against dogs abounds!)
Labels: opinionatin'
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