I’ve gotten pickier about the films I go see in the theater. With tickets costing between $5-$9, I want the movie to be worth the money. Usually, I choose a film based on word of mouth from people I respect, or very rarely from trailers that are unique and make the film seem unmissable. Unfortunately, some movies, despite their good reviews, just end up disappointing me.
The last movie I saw in 2007 was I am Legend. I went to see it based on positive reviews from a few friends. I’m sad to say, I thought it would be much better than it was. It’s a sci-fi survival thriller minus the thriller. I expected more tension than the film provided. Normally, in the dark of the theater I find it easy to suspend my disbelief for a few hours, but I had almost no tolerance for the awful CGI mutated humans. The movie would have been more effective and disturbing if the director had kept the glimpses of the infected humans to a bare minimum. The creepiest shot of the mutated people is the very first time the camera shows a flash of their feet in the dark. Shortly afterward, the audience sees the full ridiculous appearance of an infected individual and from there on the movie loses whatever momentum it had been attempting to build. Maybe they should have reduced the CGI budget and used the money saved to hire actors in makeup. I would have been a lot more horrified of real men and women running around on-screen portraying the feral and uncivilized infected, than of the laughable computer graphics that were used. I feel like I wasted money on this film.
I do have a better review to give my first film of 2008 though. This past weekend I saw Cloverfield in the theater. This is one of those few films I decided I wanted to see just from its trailer. There was a huge viral marketing campaign for the film online and even though I avoided most of the advertising, it was hard to ignore the presence of the buzz. I know a lot of people have had trouble with the shaky and sometimes disorienting footage, but that didn’t pose a problem for me. For the most part, I liked the film.
The most personable character in the film is Hud, who serves as cameraman through the majority of the film. He seems more like the main character than anyone else because the audience is seeing the events taking place through his eyes. As to the events in the movie and the behavior of the characters, I just have to shake my head repeatedly. The characters in this film have all the survival instincts of a group of blind squirrels in heavy traffic. Running towards destruction and devastation is never a good idea. They all have a dismaying lack of common sense and obviously never play video games. In the brief moments when they are in “safe” environments with the opportunity to take stock and decide what to do next, they don’t take advantage of the situation. It’s nighttime, but none of them thinks to look for a flashlight, a first aid kit, or something to act as a “portable emergency kit” to carry food and water in. I’d like to think that I’d keep a cooler head in such an awful situation
My only real problem with the film, other than the remarkable stupidity of the characters, is that I would have appreciated better dialogue and a stronger plot. I do like J.J. Abrams work, but I also think he’s capable of better.
Maybe in the future I should keep my expectations lower. Then I might be able to walk out of a theater praising a movie instead of focusing on all the minutiae. I can think of a recent example where I had little or no hope for a movie and was instead pleasantly surprised. I’m referring to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. I sat down to watch the rental thinking it would be just as awful as the second film in the trilogy and discovered otherwise. It wasn’t a wonderful movie by any stretch, but it was a definite improvement over what I thought I would be seeing.
That’s it. From here on, I’m making a genuine effort to keep my movie expectations low.