We got out of the house yesterday and went to see I Am Legend, a romantic comedy about a killer virus that wipes out 90% of the Earth's population, leaving 1% immune and 9% as pseudo-vampires, hiding in the dark and seeking blood. Somehow, Ashely Judd is not in this movie.I need to start by saying I liked this movie; I thought it had an interesting premise, was entertaining, and I think Will Smith really showed he can act, not just fight CGI beasties (although that happens a lot here). However, I have to admit that the more I think about the movie, the more I have questions about what happened (or didn't happen, but maybe should have), and how much might have been lost in the translation from the book (I am not sure how this happened, given my geekboy upbringing, but I have never read it).
The rest of this may contain spoilers, so if you have not seen the movie, read on at your own risk.
Some questions:
1) If the lead monster was smart enough to devise a snare to catch Robert, why wasn't he smarter at other times? For example, instead of just sending the demon dogs, shouldn't he have swarmed Robert right then?
2) If the lead monster was smart enough to use tools to devise said snare, why wasn't he smart enough to use other tools, like say a gun or a big hunk of rock, hurled from the darkness to kill our hero?
3) If the government/military sealed off the island of Manhattan, how did the Brazilian get there from Maryland? For that matter, how did she get out at the end?
3A) If less than 1% of the world's population survived the virus, and even less than that are still walking and not zombie chow, what are the odds that one survivor, from Brazil, would speak perfect English?
4) How did so many zombies survive for three years? Does this go back to the "smart" zombie idea above, that even though the zombies were losing their humanity and reverting, they were just smart enough to survive? (I thought this was one of the strongest points in the movie 28 Days Later; there, the infected simply ran out of food and started dying off after a while since they were unable, in their "rage" state, to organize and feed themselves, and their bodies simply gave out).
I get that a lot of the answers to this fall into the "it's a movie" category, but I think they could have been dealt with better.
And yeah, I will admit it...I got a little teary when the dog died, but not when the 6 billion people did. Not sure what that says about me.
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2 comments:
You should definitely read the book, it is short and quite good (Matheson was a big contributer to "The Twilight Zone"). From your description, I wonder how they played out the fact of Robert becoming a legend to the new society, or if they just used the original title. BTW, this is the third time this movie has been made - first with Vincent Price (Last Man on Earth), then with Chuck Heston (Omega Man). I'll check it out on video. We went to see "The Golden Compass" yesterday, and it was great - two thumbs up from the whole family.
3A) If less than 1% of the world's population survived the virus, and even less than that are still walking and not zombie chow, what are the odds that one survivor, from Brazil, would speak perfect English?
And what are the odds that said survivor is the ONLY brazilian person who doesn't know who Bob Marley is? Srsly.
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