At the rate they were they could create a decent civilization in 1000 years.

This was a dissapointment, a very short uneven mediocre film.
Will Smith's worst acting since Wild wild west. The set design was eyepopping but this film had no heart and i didnt care for Smith's character or the 2 other ones introduced later in the film, though the dog was cute.

I stopped reading after that.

There is no other indication that Neville is going crazy. Nothing substantial. He sees the head move on the mannequin, but I'm sure everyone here has thought they've seen something move when it actually didn't. It's a simple trick of the mind. Everything else he has done was well within rational and sane antics. There is no foundation to believe Neville did it outside of speculation, no development, and no evidence.

Whereas to think that the monsters did it, there is a clear foundation (they saw him set a similar trap earlier in the movie), rationale (they are semi-intelligent creatures, able to formulate plans of breaking into Neville's house), and evidence (there were plenty of monsters waiting for him when he had awoken).

I can't recall ever being so bored with a discussion over a small point in a film before...

Major plot hole! How the hell did Anna get to Neville?

With her Jeep.

How, by ferry?

Speaking of which, Neville should have made his home on a ship... unless the infected could swim.

It really makes you wonder what happened in the few months after the outbreak. Neville probably fortified the house as the surviving immune were slowly wiped out. What was it like during day (and night) in those days?

I thought briefly over the weekend about seeing this, then I thought the better of it.

Does this end like the Charlton Heston movie? I never read the book.

no it does not end the same

Easy...

Dude, you're the best. I bet the original ending portrayed Anna as a hallucination, a la Fight Club. Her showing up in Manhattan is a physical impossibility.

Maybe the final scene with her at the camp in Vermont was simply imagined by Neville so he coud die happy?!

Her jeep can actually fly, something the movie didn't really want to get into. Because of course all cars can fly in 2012.

Ehh, I don't think I buy the "he hallucinated Anna" theory. For one, that means he died at the dock because nobody would have been there to save him. He would have been dreaming if anything (which I don't think he was), and it would have had to be a right quick dream too seeing as he was about to be eaten.

Also, when he wakes up in his house, he hallucinates that he sees his wife standing where Anna is. Why bother with an hallucination on top of an hallucination?

I think her getting to Manhattan is just a plot hole, if that.

I disagree. Many people who have experienced being knocked unconscious, anaesthetized, or even falling into or out of the dream state will know how much time can seem to pass by in the blink of an eye. And certainly, dreams within dreams are not uncommon.

The more I think of it, the more I believe that is exactly what happened - - he dreamed/hallucinated the entire ending of the movie in the short period of time he hung dying at the pier.

And if anything, that makes the ending all that much cooler and darker.

It certainly explains how this "colony" of survivors, which seemed extremely organized and sophisticated, and that was only a couple hundred miles north of Neville's position, didn't hear his radio messages, nor send him any of their own.

Couldn't Ana have just taken a small boat, or something, to Manhattan and then taken whatever available car there was?

Yes, there was a cross hanging from the rearview mirror, but she easily seems like the type who would take the cross from her car and put it in the new car she took.

Anyway, I saw I am Legend again on Monday with someone who hadn't seen it, and I liked it better the second time. The audience seemed to enjoy it, responding appropriately at the intended moments and all. Plus, for a Monday night the theater was pretty much full.

One thing I think the movie could have done better was the credits music. After Ana's little narration the credits suddenly start, without much music. I don't really like when movies just limp into the credits.

Hmm, I agree with your point about unconsciousness distorting our perception of time, but more often than not it has the opposite effect of what you're talking about? Like, the one time I was put under (for oral surgery), what was actually 2-3 hours of surgery only felt like I'd been asleep for a couple minutes? I can't count how many times I feel like I've only blinked and an hour of sleep has passed as well. I honestly don't know if I've experienced the effect you're talking about, where a minute might feel like hours. More often than not, people underestimate rather than overestimate the amount of time they are typically unconscious. I seriously doubt Neville could have had such a vivid and extensive hallucination before he would have turned into a midnight snack for the vampires.

Also, the portrayal of Neville following the dock incident does not jive with someone envisioning themself in a hallucination. Anna is seen as the centered, calm one, while Neville is very off-putting to the other two, clearly suffering from at least a minimal amount of derangement. Usually demented people think everyone else is crazy, not themselves. A hallucination would probably have been more like the experience where Neville is confused by a distorted perception of Anna while being driven home in her car. The dissonance between that scene (along with Neville's hallucination of his wife in the kitchen) with the scenes in the house where we are seeing Neville's dementia from Anna and the boy's point of view tell me that it's definitely not just a concoction of Neville's mind. If most of the third act is simply Neville's last gasp at justifying his mission and making a legend out of himself prior to his purported death on the dock, why would he include these bits which show signs of his growing insanity? People with savior complexes don't generally do that.

As far as the radio goes, who knows how powerful it is? New Jersey is a whole hell of a lot closer to Manhattan than upstate Vermont is. Plus, I really doubt the people in the colony would have ventured out for any reason, considering the virus was implicated to still be airborne, and the danger of infected colonists returning (remember Anna's recount of the ship?). At any rate, IAL wouldn't exactly be the first movie to push logic in order to further the plot.

Honestly, this isn't exactly an ambiguous situation like Pan's Labyrinth was, where you can make a definite case for two different explanations. There isn't really any evidence to suggest that the third act is an hallucination on Neville's part.

I enjoy how we have an intellectual and entertaining blockbuster that is actually raking in big bucks for once.

A/A+ for me, and realizing I am in a minority, I liked the ending, although I would have liked it more if (spoilers if you have not read the book):

Intellectual? Ok...

IMAX experience down the drain.

**/****

Crashes and burns when the supporting characters come in. Zombies are hollow, run-of-the-mill - lot's of missed potential to make them into something more. Even using the existing zombies, more could be done to create that tension, that sense of inescapable dread. I think the idea about the ending being a dream is interesting and could have been played with more. Smith was adequate as always. Would've liked the zombies to be fleshed out some more...

This is a story of a man alone, a man going mad and this film captures it amazingly.

I dunno,im going to be an arrogant bastard for a second and say I know apocalypse cinema better then anybody on this site and ill say this film is very very well done.

The tension, the isolation, the madness is grabbed and raised up and when the darkness comes you taste and you want to revel in it. to hell with the Cgi thats boring, its all about the raw aggression and its out and about to a perfect degree.

I mean seriously what the hell do people want??

The 3rd act bothered you??

Its not completely faithful to the book which is a bummer cause the book is awesome but ill live with that because this film is perfect within its genre. I await the inevitable snob comments but I don't care because this is genre perfection.

Saying you're the expert (and implying everyone else is ignorant) makes the one that responds to you in disagreement a snob? lol!

Anyway, this was really, really enjoyable (and tense!) until it flew off the tracks after Sam's death. Cheese, cheese, cheese. The ending would've been better had it been darker. I could feel the hopelessness setting in and that's something I really wish would've remained thru the end. And imagine if the zombies/whateveryoucallem were fleshed out a bit, more in the fashion of the book (haven't read it so I can't compare, just going off what I've learned).... it would've redefined the meaning of the film in a much more intelligent, satisfying way.

As it stands, the ending bothered me a bit. It's all good. Glad you enjoyed it.

Good points. A few flashbacks of Neville constructing his hideout during the post-infection chaos, and how these 'zombies' socially devolved, would have been sexy.

hehe, sorry I get like that with these type's of films don't take me literally or anything.

Note to self: Stop reviewing apocalypse films just after watching them, you sound like a loony toon!!

You're right.....but where were you when the film totally abandoned that aspect? The movie goes into ridiculous same old blockbuster fare in the end and thats kinda worse then a film that sets it's identity from the get go. It's as if the writer just said "Eh fuck it, I wrote myself into a corner and I'm too bored to figure out a way out, I'll just change the whole theme of the film and start blowing shit up and add some ridiculous plot points"

This is a tale of two movies. One that has fantastic atmosphere and tension, the other is the same typical shit we see from practically every blockbuster, but with mediocre action.