Reading that back, it sounds very dry and boring. Believe me, the movie is anything but dry and boring. I just wanted to make points that might correspond to the book. It’s an entertaining movie, but it’s also an interesting movie, not at all what I expected, which was something along the lines of a Die Hard in Zombieville. It’s exciting, it’s scary (it’s definitely not for the kids), but it’s psychological too. It looks great (front row of the IMAX is a great place to judge special effects and these were tremendous. I noticed no CGI although I know there was a lot in the film. I was just so caught up in Neville’s story I wasn’t looking for and didn’t see seams or fakey things.
And I seriously was not kidding about how great Will Smith was. He’s always been a good actor, but he just keeps getting better and better.
I believe the “spoilers” in this case was referring to spoliers for the novella, with speculation on how story elements could have been bastardized for the movie.
(I tend to be spoiler-immune, because I am often more interested in how a story is told than any specific plot points, but I am glad to hear that Movie Powers that Be did not cop out with a happy ending for neville.)
I’m encouraged by this, I read that all the “not-vampires” are CGI. I was worried that it would pull me out of the film, but if you didn’t notice at an IMAX, I won’t have a problem with my regular theater. Very much looking forward to this movie.
[Hijack] I didn’t find the ending of the Mist more bleak than the book, but less so; what is in the book a likely tragedy for all mankind is in the movie only a personal tragedy to the guy in the car. Meaning:
In the book, it’s likely the bugs won.
[/Hijack]
I’m looking forward to Legend just based on the movie trailer; I’m not familiar with the book.
That wasn’t shown. They obviously banded together in some form though, because near the end they do something as one (well, a whole hell of a lot of them do, but it might not have been all of them in the city). There was a leader too, but he’s not shown leading, as such, he’s just shown a lot. He doesn’t speak or make communication noise, other than yowling in rage. I’ll bet there’s more scenes of him on the cutting room floor. He was really frightening.
All? Absolutely not. Probably the times when many of them were running together, I’d think, yeah, but many were people in makeup. Really great makeup. There were some dogs that must have been CGI, but they sure didn’t look like CGI to me.
I’m sure some people will complain about the CGI, because, well, some people ALWAYS complain. You know how it is.
If they didn’t have these creatures do things that defied gravity, I wouldn’t have thought any of them were CGI, just because…I didn’t think about it. I was too busy watching the movie. As I said, I knew there was CGI in the movie, but I was so caught up in it all that nothing about any of that took me out of the film. YMMV. Only the scene where the woman shows up took me out of the film, just for a while though.
One of the reviews I read complained that this version leaves out the character played by Anthony Zerbe in the Heston movie. I thought Zerbe and Heston’s “relationship” was the best thing about Omega Man.
Does this version explain why the mutants care about the Neville and the non-mutants?
I’d have trouble accepting a mutated virus that turns people into physically superior beings. The vicious part I can believe – hell, alcohol and drugs can do that to us.
If these mutants don’t form a society of their own, that pretty well guts this having any claim to being Matheson’s story. Sounds to me more like a relative of “Night of the Living Dead.”
No. Nothing at all is from the mutant’s point of view.
But some drugs can turn humans into stronger people, such as steroids and PCP. That the mutants are stronger, or faster, or vicious isn’t the problem. That they can defy gravity by hanging upside down from a ceiling, and easily climb up walls like Spider-Man, and jump from the ground to the roof of a house…that’s a problem. I rolled my eyes at all that. But, it really doesn’t matter, you take things in stride in movies like this. That all was minor compared to how much I enjoyed this movie.
We’ll just have to wait until it opens and people who are very familiar with both the original story and Omega Man to say what. The only society-like thing that was shown, was when Neville goes into a building to find his dog, who had chased a deer inside. It was broad daylight but pitch dark inside the building (indicating that they had covered the windows to block out light). The mutants were eating the deer and seemed to all be breathing at the same time.
Lots of scenes could have ended up on the cutting room floor. There is one freaky scene in the trailer that wasn’t in the movie. Neville is standing there and one of the mutants comes up on his right (our left) and looks like he’s ready to take a bite out of Neville’s neck. I was dreading that scene because my tension level was already maxed out, but that scene never came.
Aaaaand that seals it: I won’t be seeing this movie. :mad:
Goddammit, why is it necessary for an animal to die horribly in EVERY DAMN MOVIE these days?! I asked my husband (who is Obsessed with the book) if the dog dies in the book, and he said no.
Is he misremembering (possible, as he never reads his copy as it’s a first edition, sealed in freakin’ plastic from like 50 years ago or something), or did Hollywood just decide it wasn’t bleak enough without a dog dying?
If it makes a difference, the movie doesn’t show Neville actually killing the dog. You just know what he’s doing by the tortured heartbroken look on his face and then the dog not panting anymore. Other animals are shown being killed though. A lion kills a deer. (and Neville kills some mutant dogs that try to kill him, and that infect his dog, though I don’t know if that counts)
??? You have a movie where the hero’s wife and kid are killed and others are infected or die from the disease and the reason you pick to keep away is that some dumbassed dog bites it!!! Why not ask why people have to get blown up shot and brutalized for entertainment purposes?!?
Lord save me from modern man for when he has too little to worry about he is a complete lunatic!