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Treating myself
So as a treat for myself, I decided to go see "I Am Legend".
It was a stunningly good film.
First, the laws of physics were not broken at any point during the film. The rules of biology were only strained, but there was a reasonable and logical in-universe explanation for it. The ghouls (for lack of a better term) were not stupid. They learned. They adapted. They planned. And they almost won.
Our Hero was not perfect. In fact, he was only marginally sane, a point which the film carefully made clear without being sledgehammeriffic. In fact, several of the most emotionally engaging scenes were where Our Hero flat out tips over the razor edge he'd been walking and goes insane for a bit. Towards the end, when Our Hero is explaining why he can't leave NYC and uses the exact same words and intonations that he'd told his wife when sending her away, chills went down my spine. Especially since Our Hero didn't notice and therefore no explicit attention was called to the fact.
As for the actual technical elements of the film, the music/sound engineers made excellent use of silence. Most (not all, but most) of the sound or music in the movie came from in-universe sources like the stereo Our Hero had in his townhouse/fortress. The effective use of silence is drastically underrated in so many current films and therefore drew you further into the movie, making it seem as if you were actually there.
Finally, the God Question. It wouldn't be a horror flick without your obligatory reference to events either being a continuation of God's plan or due to meddling in God's domain. Not to mention the loss/reclamation of faith trope. All were addressed here, but in a subtle enough way that it wasn't jarring.
I'm giving it 9.5 out of 10. The only reason it didn't make full grade was because the CGI used to create the ghouls was mildly distracting in a few scenes, although not enough to throw you out of the suspension of disbelief.
Also, I saw the latest trailer for Cloverfield. Nothing new, really, but it looks better and better every time I see something about it. I'm still not convinced that the movie is actually called Cloverfield, though, since all the ARGish elements associated with the marketing heavily imply that that's just a code name.
It was a stunningly good film.
First, the laws of physics were not broken at any point during the film. The rules of biology were only strained, but there was a reasonable and logical in-universe explanation for it. The ghouls (for lack of a better term) were not stupid. They learned. They adapted. They planned. And they almost won.
Our Hero was not perfect. In fact, he was only marginally sane, a point which the film carefully made clear without being sledgehammeriffic. In fact, several of the most emotionally engaging scenes were where Our Hero flat out tips over the razor edge he'd been walking and goes insane for a bit. Towards the end, when Our Hero is explaining why he can't leave NYC and uses the exact same words and intonations that he'd told his wife when sending her away, chills went down my spine. Especially since Our Hero didn't notice and therefore no explicit attention was called to the fact.
As for the actual technical elements of the film, the music/sound engineers made excellent use of silence. Most (not all, but most) of the sound or music in the movie came from in-universe sources like the stereo Our Hero had in his townhouse/fortress. The effective use of silence is drastically underrated in so many current films and therefore drew you further into the movie, making it seem as if you were actually there.
Finally, the God Question. It wouldn't be a horror flick without your obligatory reference to events either being a continuation of God's plan or due to meddling in God's domain. Not to mention the loss/reclamation of faith trope. All were addressed here, but in a subtle enough way that it wasn't jarring.
I'm giving it 9.5 out of 10. The only reason it didn't make full grade was because the CGI used to create the ghouls was mildly distracting in a few scenes, although not enough to throw you out of the suspension of disbelief.
Also, I saw the latest trailer for Cloverfield. Nothing new, really, but it looks better and better every time I see something about it. I'm still not convinced that the movie is actually called Cloverfield, though, since all the ARGish elements associated with the marketing heavily imply that that's just a code name.