Like most people, it’s fair to say I’m a great admirer of yours. Heck, I even know you well enough to call you Big Willie, a nickname you obviously encourage. You’re talented, undeniably charming, a genuine screen presence, and perhaps – as I argued here – the only genuine movie star we have left.
That’s why I feel the need to protect you from yourself. You see, it seems like you’re developing a problem, and I hope by pointing it out – by leading you to acceptance – you’ll be able to turn things around before they get worse.
I AM LEGEND: Will Smith proves his natural screen presence isn’t a fluke by doing here what few actors can do: carry a large part of a film all by himself (and a canine companion). It doesn’t hurt that he’s aided by a stunning representation of Manhattan as a post-apocalyptic wasteland, overrun by fauna, wild life, and abandoned vehicles. The film starts out a haunting, carefully paced study of how the last man on earth – survivor of a deadly virus – finds the means to go on with day to day life, but unfortunately something goes wrong. Around the halfway mark a significant event occurs that catalyzes an exponential plummet in quality and squanders the potential of the film. In short, it becomes a bad Will Smith action movie, crippled by poor special effects (think Gollum on a lesser budget), overblown spectacle, weak story and characters, and an ending that’s just the cherry on top of a series of culminating disappointments.
BREAKFAST WITH SCOT: A sort of Canadian gay version of the recently DVD released MARTIAN CHILD (with John Cusack), though the film is charming, it sometimes ventures into moderately offensive territory in its representation of Scot, and at other times sub-plots get a little muddled and unfocused in the middle segment of the film. It mostly pulls through in the end though, largely because of the always great Tom Cavanagh and because it never loses the thread of its theme: what matters most is being true to who you really are, and never being ashamed of it.
Before reading any further, both this clip and my comments below contain numerous SPOILERS to the film I AM LEGEND, so if you have not seen it yet, venture no further.
All set? Okay.
I AM LEGEND was conflicting film for me, largely because I loved the first half of it, and completely hated the second half. The dividing point for me was the death of the dog. It’s not just because I absolutely adore dogs and hate to see them hurt in film, largely because mine had to be put down at the young age of five several years back (in fact, she was lying in my lap much the same way Will Smith’s character’s dog was). It was also because after that gut-wrenching moment the movie completely derailed from its rather astounding and engaging set-up and environment and devolved into stereotypical Hollywood shlock. In other words, it turned into a Will Smith film when before it wasn’t entirely. In fact, it wasn’t unlike CASTAWAY, just with Will Smith, who proved himself as able to hold his own as the sole person on screen as Tom Hanks did.
So does this alternate ending help at all? A little. In the original theatrical ending I felt Will Smith’s sacrificial death was too forced, milked for the shock effect of seeing Smith (our hero) die, rather than anything related to the character. By that I do not mean it was an action that didn’t make sense for the character. It did, given that the film spent a fair amount of time setting up his sense of guilt over unfulfilled obligations. It just felt that the creators chose that ending because “Oh no, Will Smith died!” instead of the more dramatic reasons to have Neville die.
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