I Am Legend.

"[T]he first two thirds and change of I Am Legend is terrific mindless fun: crackerjack action with gnashing vampires barely glimpsed (and scarier for that) and how'd-they-do-that New York locations," writes David Edelstein in New York. "Then some boring characters show up and a dangling cross on a rearview mirror signals faith and hope are about to make a dispiriting comeback. The finale is swift and senseless. So far no one has gotten the ending of this story right. We should get on it before the real plague hits."

"I Am Legend, the third or fourth film - depending on what you count - based on the 1954 apocalyptic science fiction novel by Richard Matheson, nails the emotional core in [Richard] Matheson's story," writes the Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt. "What would it be like to be a last man on Earth?"

Updated through 12/15.

"The mutants first appear in a terrifically tense set piece half an hour in," writes John Hazelton for Screen Daily. "They're more like monsters than the vampires of the Matheson tale and though actors are credited with playing them they appear to be as much the product of CG work as of flesh and blood performance. They're certainly scary, but making them less recognizably human than Matheson's creatures removes an element of pathos from the story."

Alex Billington talks with screenwriter Akiva Goldsman for First Showing.

MoviesOnline interviews Will Smith.

Earlier: Last week's first impressions and reviews.

Updates, 12/11: "About 10 minutes into the new Will Smith movie I Am Legend, which opens in Manhattan theaters on Friday, my heart rate went up to about 200 and stayed there for the next hour and a half," writes the New York Observer's Sara Vilkomerson. "Staggering back out into Times Square's holiday crush from the screening room it seemed we'd just been through an aerobic workout before even facing the crowds of tourists and commuters - surprisingly not zombies."

"Smith is simply dazzling here, and for all the undeniably impressive work the actor has done on his physique for this role, what's most appealing about him is his active intelligence - how he thinks his way through a role - and his capacity for human weakness," writes Scott Foundas in the Voice. "If, as a movie, I Am Legend is less stylistically mind-blowing and intellectually ambitious than last year's yuletide dystopia, Children of Men, it's not far off.... [Director Francis] Lawrence takes things slow and easy, staging much of the film in long, dialogue-free handheld camera shots that use space, production design, and intricately layered sound effects to deliver us into Neville's desolate existence. But when the time comes for the inevitable showdowns between Neville and the Infected, Lawrence is no slouch."

Online viewing tip. At ScreenGrab, Leonard Pierce's got a video interview with Matheson.

Updates, 12/12: "I Am Legend is so good for so long, and Lawrence so adept at dragging out the tension of ingeniously devised, small-scaled suspense sequences, not even a massive flurry of explosions, fake-looking CGI and treacly Hollywood nonsense can undo the goodwill," writes Sean Burns in the Philadelphia Weekly. "Two thirds of a great movie is better than nothing."

"[U]nwise use of CGI is eventually no more debilitating a defect than I Am Legend's wayward third act, which begins with Neville cornily reciting lines from Shrek (whose titular, lonely character he relates to) and crooning Bob Marley, and then swiftly devolves into a morass of shabby, barely developed spirituality in which Neville learns to believe in God's plan and, as a result, finds the strength and courage to transform himself into a modern-day Jesus," writes Nick Schager in Slant.

Updates, 12/13: "Like a number of similar films released recently - including 28 Weeks Later, Children of Men, The Invasion and The Mist - Legend, in part, reflects a culture both alienated from reality by media images and voyeuristically drawn to fantasies of death and destruction," writes Peter Keough in the Boston Phoenix. "These sole-survivor-of-doom movies are a symptom of the times, as they were before when previous editions of Matheson’s story shared the screen with a host of other films about being the sole survivor of mass human extinction. Each of these films mirrors the subconscious of the audiences who watched them." As for this one, he likes it.

"It's a fascinating restructuring of cultural history that I Am Legend presents Smith as the Alpha African-American movie star," writes Armond White in the New York Press. "In the film's most impassioned moment, Smith's scientist-soldier character shouts, 'I can save everybody!' Let's anatomize this phenomenon...."

"I Am Legend is a solid, handsomely mounted addition to the zombie-metropolis canon," writes Godfrey Cheshire in the Independent Weekly. "Anchored by Smith's subtle and resourceful performance, it may not win over those who feel that 2007 has seen too many zombie movies already - does this have anything to do with the impending elections? - but its vision of an uninhabited New York comprises some of the year's most riveting movie imagery."

Up to the second half, I Am Legend was "developing into one of the finest science fiction movies of recent years," writes Andrew Stuttaford in the New York Sun. "It's good, but it should have been - could have been - great."

Will Smith has "become Hollywood's biggest post-racial movie star," write John Horn and Chris Lee in the Los Angeles Times.

"A big part of the reason for this movie's nose dive around the one-hour mark is that, seen up close, the Infected just aren't that scary," writes Slate's Dana Stevens. "Sure, they're startling when they pop out at you unexpectedly from the shadows, but so is my building superintendent. As rendered by a combination of CGI and motion capture, these beings - speeded-up zombies on the 28 Weeks Later model, wearing only torn trousers à la Incredible Hulk - are too familiar to elicit more than a mild 'eww'; and the movie trots them out so often that they start to become almost cute."

"Eerie and breathtakingly evocative, the solid I Am Legend nevertheless tries to be too many things to too many people, weighed down with cheap horror-film shock effects and barely passable CGI, instead of trusting in its legitimately captivating last-man-on-Earth scenario," writes Brandon Fibbs at cinemaattraction.

"Overall, I Am Legend is a wasted opportunity - a rickety, weather-beaten framework around an otherwise strong central performance from Smith," writes Eric Alt for Premiere.

Updates, 12/14: "Lawrence, who previously directed the hectic, obnoxious Constantine and many music videos, uses elaborate, computer-assisted means to create simple, striking effects," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "While I Am Legend... fits comfortably within the conventions of the sci-fi horror genre - here come those zombies! - it mixes dread and suspense with contemplative, almost pastoral moods." As for Smith, "There is something graceful and effortless about this performance, which not only shows what it might feel like to be the last man on earth, but also demonstrates what it is to be a movie star."

"I Am Legend is 28 Days Later on steroids," writes Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times. "Or on Hollywood, which amounts to the same thing."

"[S]omehow, I Am Legend turns out to be a largely terrific, meanly gripping movie, anchored by a central performance from Will Smith at his most serious-minded," writes Andrew Wright in the Stranger. "I'm as shocked as you are."

But for Tasha Robinson, writing at the AV Club, it "feels like two movies jammed awkwardly together."

"In the early 21st century, a perfect world is not as engaging, or as seemingly likely, as a post-apocalyptic world" notes John Constantine at Nerve, taking a cue from Fredric Jameson. "In a movie devastating in its moments of quiet realism, it's too bad the antagonists look like cartoons. Put them aside, and you should enjoy the haunted Manhattan of I Am Legend."

"[I]f it is true that mankind has 100 years to live before we destroy our planet, it provides an enlightening vision of how Manhattan will look when it lives on without us," writes Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. "The movie works well while it's running, although it raises questions that later only mutate in our minds."

"[W]e jump, we cringe, we even weep," writes Andy Klein in the LA CityBeat. "Sometimes it goes just a little beyond the predictable as well. There is a funny scene not far from the end that shows how years without human contact can make you squirrelly in ways that aren't obvious until other people are around. It points up the movie's thematic resemblances to Cast Away, which remains the gold standard on the subject."

Updates, 12/15: "I'm wondering whether, for that first hour at least, I Am Legend isn't the most meditative blockbuster ever made," writes Salon's Stephanie Zacharek. "In short, until the movie's false and flashy faux-religious climax, I Am Legend barely seems like an action movie at all. And though it has its flaws, including numerous cracks in its logic, I've never seen a blockbuster quite like it. Lawrence has pulled off what Steven Spielberg failed to do in War of the Worlds: He gives us an apocalyptic vision in which enforced loneliness and isolation almost become a state of grace. This is big-budget filmmaking that shows a human touch, and for that reason alone, I fear for its box-office potential."

"I'm hesitant to say how well I Am Legend will endure the test of time, but while you're watching it, you're caught in an iron grip, moved and manipulated and carried away by filmmakers who know exactly how to make you sink into our seat with dread," writes Cinematical's James Rocchi. "I shivered and tensed throughout I Am Legend, and at the end of the credits, I was dumbstruck to learn it was PG-13; it felt far more gripping and grim and upsetting than that rating would suggest."

The Last Man on Earth "has an unforgettable flashback to [Vincent] Price searching a ghastly funeral pyre for his little girl as the contagion spreads," notes Robert Cashill. "This new one being an impersonal, crowd-pleasing, A-list/PG-13 studio project, it ties our stomach up in knots over the fate of the dog while barely raising the hackles over the fate of mankind."

"The word 'mixed' isn't mixed enough to fit my response to this film," writes Time's Richard Corliss.

"[T]he film crackles with intelligence and terror," writes Alonso Duralde for MSNBC. "[Z]ombies have been, pardon the pun, done to death in recent years, but Lawrence makes these beasties into a formidable threat. He also ratchets the suspense level up into the red, making for a wonderfully squirmy experience. As for Smith, he has to carry about 80 percent of the movie solo, and he's utterly compelling."

Posted by dwhudson at December 10, 2007 3:31 PM