I assumed it was something to block his scent so he wouldn’t be tracked. He mentioned something to the woman who rescues him, that, “They don’t know where I live. Drive until dawn. Don’t let them track us.”
I agree that from the point where he was rescued was downhill plotwise with a few great characterization scenes.
I actually liked that he used the dog as a hunting dog–in that situation, you’ll use any advantage you can get. Anyway, German Shepherds are a working breed, and it would have loved it. I liked those scenes with the dog better than the others where he was being cute, telling the dog to eat her veggies, etc. He treated the dog like a dog, and their relationship seemed very comfortable and natural. It was one of the most well done parts of the movie, IMO.
If you check out the site on Google Earth, Neville’s townhouse (11 Washington Sq. North, Manhattan) appears to be part of the NYU campus. For what that’s worth.
I haven’t read the story. From the descriptions up thread, I like the sounds of it much more than the direction the movie took. I saw the movie Friday night. I don’t completely agree with DtC’s comments, but he did a good job of nailing the problems. I do think it was worth the price of admission, but it was flawed. Worse, it could have been so much more. The pieces were there.
It was obvious that the Alpha Male was upset because Neville kidnapped his woman. It was also obvious that Neville didn’t realize the relationship and was underestimating the remaining intelligence (humanity?) in the zombies. The trap scene should have set it up beautifully for Neville to start to understand his mistake. The cured Alpha Female could have helped. Instead the movie abandoned these elements and introduced a woman and child on a mission from God. I won’t say the wheels fell completely off when she appeared. There were some great scenes afterwards, but that is where things went south. The intelligence of the Alpha Male gets dropped. The cured female never speaks, which could have led to some intense scenes.
It wasn’t bad. It just could have been so much more. Will did a nice job though.
In spite of Equipose’s denial of this, as we were leaving the theater RogueGF said something to the effect of, “parts of it reminded me of Castaway.”
I expected the Alpha Female to escape, become partially cured by the treatment Neville had administered, and later return to Neville as a spy for the zombies. (In somewhat similar fashion to the plot of the book.) The movie would have been more interesting if it had played out that way.
I was disappointed in the film, and have not read the novella (yet).
The family prayer on the chopper was the first wince. The cgi quality was the second wince. None of the cgi even came close to realistic, imho. The survivor woman “listening to God” had me gritting my teeth. The butterfly aka “Mothman Prophecies” aka “Signs” symbolism bullshit was completely and utterly unforgivable.
If you ignore the family prayer and the ending, I thought Will Smith’s performace was good and entertaining, and kept the experience from being a total loss of 2 hours.
I suspect that the infected would be permanently altered mentally, and that a cure would primarily bring the aggression down - but the original person is likely gone. Think in terms of organic brain damage.
Ditto for the infected in the 28 series.
Neville’s comments seem forced - after the trap, after the mate braving the light for his female - for Neville not to notice? It seems unlikely, but he wasn’t operating on all of his cylinders, and his empirical experience gave him tunnel vision. This is not an uncommon problem in medicine and science. But the active trap should have shaken his model.
If the dog hadn’t died I think he would have realized the error in his thinking. The setting of the trap, with bait - the choice of which implied knowing his habits at least a little, and the use of the dogs to attack, were all clear signs of an ability to think and plan.
I thought the movie was great and I did read (and love) the book before seeing the movie. The only things that really bothered me where trying to figure out how the woman/boy got on & off the island; how they actually rescued him (there were still tons of creatures around); why he didn’t question her more about what time they got home; and why the security around the Vermont town so lax. Oh, and why he didn’t pull his foot out of the puddle before the rope could grab his leg. But I think a lot of that was left ambiguous to maintain some suspense for the people who’d read the book. I didn’t trust the woman until the voiceover at the end.
I thought it was brilliant that the zombie that was inside the house was ripping apart the ceiling to make a way for the others to get inside. This to me showed again that they could communicate and plan. It was horrifying - I think this movie will cause a shift in the way zombies are protrayed in general, especially zombies who don’t come back from the grave. I know that in Dawn of the Dead one of the zombies was able to reason, but in this one it had to have been more than the Alpha Male who retained that ability.
Will Smith was utterly fantastic. Much better than that wooden puppet who was the lead in The Mist. That guy couldn’t sell a glass of water to a man dying of thrist.
I must have missed it - what was in the bottle that Will Smith splashed on his front steps?
I loved the movie up until the dog died/revenge scene - the desolate scenes of NY and Will Smith slowly losing his mind were great. The woman/boy showing up and saving Will Smith’s character and the whole butterfly/God ending was completely lame to me. I am a fan of the original novella and wished they had kept the original intent behind the meaning of “I Am Legend.” It was a very short movie (less than 2 hours) so I’m hoping a director’s cut will have a little more meat.
Never read the source material, but as a remake of The Omega Man, I thought it was good, better than the Heston version. Although the 3rd reel cheeze factor was hard to take. The emotional breakdown over the bacon was brilliant.
Having said that what really bugged me was Nevel not piecing together the alpha male/female relationship. I clicked to it when he was videoing the “abnormal” behaviour clip. They knew how to set a trap *and *how to bait it. Dude, think about it. In the lab climax, I kept expecting him to tumble to the idea and point his gun at the female for some kind of standoff. What’s the point of starting the plot line if you’re not going to go somewhere with it? That pulled me out of the film more than anything else.
I thought that Neville was the one who set that trap, but his rapid mental decline caused him to forget he did it. Going crazy, you know?
It seemed to me that from his point of view the mannequin was actually looking from side to side as he drove past it. Those vampires didn’t seem together enough to set that trap themselves.
I’ve been know to misinterpret things in movies before.
Earlier in the movie ‘Fred’ was outside the video shop…and they never showed Neville moving that thing. So I’m not seeing how that would have worked…unless he moved it to where there was a trap and then forgot he moved it.
Well, when he took the female with the same kind of trap remember that even Neville remarked that the male present was acting strangely. He felt it meant that the things were devolving because they seemed to be losing their survival instinct…but it was pretty obvious to me that this was a bad interpretation of what was happening and showed Neville’s tunnel vision on things.
Yeah, but for a moment during the film i thought that this was precisely the point they were trying to make–that he was slowly coming apart mentally, and was starting to forget what he had done, and where he had placed his traps. But then it dawned on me that the infected guys had copied his strategy.
I think this, and some of the other different reactions to the movie, show that people came to it not only with different expectations, but with different ideas about the nature of the infected people, based on whether they had read the book or not.
If you’ve read the book, you come to the movie predisposed to look for signs of intelligence and social organization among the infected. If you haven’t read the book, you probably come to the movie with more of a “28 Days Later” idea in your mind, and need a bigger nudge before you click to the social explanation of the infected.
I think the movie could usefully have put a few more signposts there for people who had not read the book, so they would be less likely to see it is just another Speedy Zombie film.
Yep, remembering that comment about the strange behavior was what triggered my flip to understanding that the infected had set the trap with the car.
Anyway, i liked the movie although, and thought Will Smith was excellent, although like some other folks i was a bit disappointed in the ending, and in the gaping plot hole regarding how the woman and kid drove into and out of Manhattan.
In the theater where i saw it (Times Square in NY), there was a burst of applause from the ladies when Will Smith was shown doing his pull-ups.
And there was one guy who apparently found the thing just too boring. He fell asleep, and in one of the lulls in the action his loud snoring led to much laughter in the theater, before someone poked him awake.
Well, the implication I got was that she was on a really big hospital ship, but that only a few survived. I assumed that meant she went ashore at some point because several of the survivors were subsequently eaten.
Even if she and the boy DID get there by ship (and it looked like the harbor was blocked by downed bridges and sunken boats…and an air craft carrier) how did they drive out again? Though I suppose that not ever exit from the island was blocked by destroyed bridges, there would have been military road blocks…and tons of traffic. There was a scene like this in Stephen Kings The Stand and the folks in NY ended up having to walk out of the city in the end, though I think they used motor bikes at one point.
I don’t think it’s necessarily a plot hole btw…you can over analyze anything. I just didn’t think the boy and woman worked well in the movie. JMHO that.