I Am Legend. Zombie Movie. Weird.

Okay, so here's my first movie review. I promised I'd do them every now and again. Here's the thing: if you ever had a desire to see this movie, chances are you already saw it. I live in the middle of nowhere in a very small town with a very small movie theater. We get one movie a week, chosen by whoever is in charge. And sometimes, I do not have the same taste in movies as this guy. Oh, and, a movie shows up here like a month or more after the rest of the world has already seen it.  I don't have TV, so I didn't even know what this movie was about or who was in it until after the credits were done. Then, Oh, hey, Will Smith!

So, I give this movie S-T and half of A out of  STAR.  This is my wordy way of rating movies that I just came up with outta my arse. Cheesy, huh? Humor me. (If you can't figure out what just happened, this would be 2.5 out of 4 stars or thumbs up or smiley faces or whatever. Get it? Good.)

The opening  scene, which lasted for a really long time, but was slightly compelling  was probably my favorite  part of the movie. Oh, and when Will's faithful dog goes all zombie on him and he has to choke it to death. Radical, dude.

 

So this really lengthy opening scene (but you've already seen it!) basically consists of Will Smith driving through a New York City of the future, which in three years since it's banishment from the world, is sprouting grass and is now overrun by cgi deer, a couple of presumably escaped from the NYC Zoo lions, and a host of flesh eating zombies, who entered into the zombification process via a virus of some kind.

Apparently the movie is a re-make of some 1972 Charlton Heston flick. In which the zombies wear sunglasses and the movie takes place in LA. Equally as weird, in my opinion. Not sure choosing NY was the plan of the century to add believability to this thin story line.

So, back to the opening scene. Will, and his not-a-zombie-yet German Shepherd are racing through the city in a very clean, fresh off the showroom floor racy mustang. I still can't figure that part out, because he never drives that car again in the whole movie. The opening scene must have also been a Ford commercial. So, he's got this massive gun, and is out hunting, if you will, from the window of his car, I am supposing to catch some cgi deer for dinner? Never really did figure that part out either, because it turns out he has raided just about every house in NYC and has plenty of food in his pantry. Fine.  Back to the scene. So he's hunting these deer out the window of his car, and they are everywhere, like herds of them, leaping across abandoned cars and stuff. Did I mention there is grass growing out of the streets? Because they show a lot of that. A lion gets his cgi deer and finally this scene sort of trails off into a new scene.

Eventually, we meet a zombie. Then, like cockroaches, we find out there are more, many many more. Will has a few conversations with some mannequins he's befriended, out of lonlieness and maybe a smidge of slipping sanity,  his dog turns into a zombie, he kills it, I already said that, and then eventually some girl shows up and saves him from the almost majorest attack of the zombies, in which Will is letting out his aggression of losing his dog by driving his car headlong into a pack of wild zombies really close to the edge of a pier. Bad move, Will. At DUSK. Major dangerous, okay? Dusk is Zombie Time. But at this point, Will is like a little bit crackers, because shit, he's been through a lot, right? He just killed his OWN DOG. It was a zombie, but still. Hard to do, admittedly, not an easy or fun task. Especially when that dog was your only living friend. He also kills one of his mannequin friends at one point.

So right when we think Will is toast, (this is during the almost majorest zombie attack part) this girl shows up and magically saves him. Then she's like all talking about God and stuff and Will's like, there is no God, and she's all yes there is, and he's all no there's not and then pretty much the zombies suddenly show up for the biggest, majorest attack ever. And then the movie ends shortly thereafter. I won't give away the WHOLE story, just in case you haven't seen it and are really dying to.

All in all, the zombies were kinda lame, like grown up golems or something. With no personality and all they did is Rooooaaaarrrr! Roooooooarrrrrr!! RRRrrroroooooooaaaarrrr!

I blew it and took my 13 year old and his 12 year old friend to see this. I didn't know, like I mentioned, that it was a zombie movie until it was too late. They already had our six bucks. I hope the friend's mom doesn't kill me. I probably just scarred this kid for life. The zombies were pretty creepy.