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June 25, 2008

I Am Legend

Where did all the awesome go?

By Jeff_Osborn

I Am Legend’s big budget and history should have been a glaring sign that Hollywood was about to blow another one and a half plus hours of sure-fire awesomeness. Instead, Legend's exciting potential drowned out the obvious warning signs that there was about to be a serious lack of awesome. Ultimately the film came off as confused. There were some cool scenes and some decent ideas, but it never reached that level of awesome it strived for. It could not find a genre. It could not find a message. It could not find a steady pace. And, its star still cannot seem tofind his niche. Legend stumbles over everything from its story to its script to its star to its big budget.

I should have seen this coming. To make Legend, Hollywood dumped big bags of cash into a remake of a couple of old films both based on an even older novel. The trailer really made New York City look eerily decrepit and empty. Will Smith seemed poised to follow up the happy surprise of I Robot with that rare, well-executed action film he is capable of making. But, in the end, too-much money going toward a remake of a remake of a remake of a novel should always be a red flag for not enough heart and way too little awesome.

Do I blame Legend for its inability to genuinely excite and offer something innovative and awesome to its genre? Not at all. I should blame myself for having such high expectations. But my hope that the next film I see will be better than the last is what makes the art of filmmaking so great. When made with love and passion and care, a good film can be an amazing experience. The incredible feeling a great movie can inspire is what keeps me watching. But it is this same trait that disappoints me when they fall short. When I see an action or sci-fi movie, I cannot wait for my heart to start pounding and my palms to start sweating. I cannot wait for unimaginable futuristic scenarios to thrill and horrify me. These are some of the things I could not wait for Legend to bring me, but they never came.

Perhaps it was foolish to expect so much awesome out of Legend in the first place. There is no real reason why this big-budget action/ sci-fi movie should have been an exception to the lackadaisical Hollywood status-quo. The same old plot holes and a familiar lack of connection with the film’s only character left me scratching my head and wondering where all those hundreds of millions of dollars went. (It could not have possibly been the incredibly fake looking infected rats, deer, lions, explosions and, most disappointingly, the infected.)

Note to Hollywood: A film can be miss cast and still be awesome. A film can be poorly directed and be awesome. A film can be unrealistic and still be super awesome. The only things a film hoping to be awesome cannot be are boring and un-awesome. This seems simple enough, but the minds behind I am Legend were apparently unable to figure it out. Good try guys. I’ll be there to watch, and complain about, your next phoned-in effort. See you next time.

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