Sadly, I Am Legend
does nothing to buck this trend: considering how good it is for most of
it's running time and how badly it drops the ball at the end, Mr
Smith's desire to have his character turn out just how he likes it
might be a good place to lay much of the blame.
Make no
mistake, this really is a good film for the first hour or so: Smith is
the last man alive in New York (and presumably the world) after a
cancer cure mutates and turns people into either a corpse or a
vampire-like monster.
Fortunately, Smith is playing your
average super-competent solider / doctor / survivalist combo, and so
the only real drawback to his lifestyle of driving around a deserted
city hunting wildlife and grabbing mutants to drag back to his base to
test cures out on is the loneliness. Which is handled really well,
giving the film an eerie feel that's actually pretty haunting stuff for
a Hollywood blockbuster. And when there's a few subtle hints that the
mutants - who Smith considers to be mindless animals - are actually
putting together a civilisation of their own, fans of the book might
start to think this is actually going to follow through on the
original's devastating ending.
No such luck.
Some
other people turn up and the whole film basically falls apart into a
bunch of incoherent action, leaving what was promising to be something
special as yet another almost on Smith's resume.
EXTRAS with Sean Lynch
Available
in either a one-disc edition with special features, a fully-loaded
2-disc 'Steel Book' Edition - the folks behind have spared no expense
when it's come to DVD extras. And why wouldn't you when the flick
grossed well over a quarter of a billion dollars worldwide in cinemas
alone.
For pure value for money - you can't go past the 'Steel Book' Edition, simply because there is so much to play with here.
The
major drawcard is a second version of the film, with an aleternative
ending which is somewhat over exageratedly touted at "highly
controversial". Essentially - it's the way the film should have been.
If it wasn't the best version, then they wouldn't realease it in the
first place... which begs the question - why bother messing with it in
the first place?
Aside from that there is a good deal of
material to get your teeth into. There are more featurettes than you
can throw a stick at. The best of which follow the mammoth task of
closing down New York's 5th Avenue (for one of the most impressive
shots of the film) as well as a rather extensive piece on the nature of
virus (it's truly astonishing the influence these non-existant germs
have had on history).
Animation
fans will really enjoy the "Mini-sodes" which tell the story of the
virus, which were released on the internet in the lead up to the film.
The artistry is superb and serve as a great suplement to the film
(which is most probably why there is a similar thing happening in the
lead up to The Dark Knight).
Worth checking out on it's own merits,
while "Package Nerds" like myself will no doubt fork out cash just for
the cool looking DVD Box.
Conclusion:
Movie 85% Extras: 85%
|
