The Shrine

I saw this, actually, awhile back, but had figured somebody else would've made a thread for it already, so I didn't bother.

Nontheless...

Anyone here seen it? I was orginally hyped for the Dark Knight Trailer that was to be shown with it, but as I heard more about the movie itself, I found myself genuinely getting hyped up for it.

As big studio movies go, it's really quite good. The premise is awesomely played out, and the feeling of lingering madness and lonliness that accompanies the main character is truly the draw of the film--Will Smith gives one his best performances, if only because he has nothing but himself to play off of, and it's like watching the most subtle one-man show in the world--watching him jumping at shadows and talking to thin air in a sad attempt to keep his own sanity in an empty world is the best part of the movie.

Unfortunately, that can't last. Even with all the bad-assery of Will Smith getting hunted by mutant vampires, the movie proceeds to sort of shit on itself by bringing in some fairly unneccessary elements near the end and completely rewriting the ending of the book, and thus losing its meaning, in an extrodinarilly large cop-out of an ending that left me disappointed.

Still, it wasn't as bad as Beowulf--Beowulf's ending ruined the movie for me. I Am Legend's at least made sense in the film's natural progression, and so warrants a purchase when it comes out on DVD.

I saw the movie, and read the book after seeing it. I enjoyed both, but I think staying closer to the book would have been cooler, but would not be typical happy ending hollywood.

I loved the blaitent product placement of the Ford Shelby GT500

Anarky wrote:I loved the blaitent product placement of the Ford Shelby GT500

What the fuck are you talking about? Will Smith driving a brand new Ford with showroom-quality wax and paint job 3 years after the entire civilization has been destroyed to the point where all of Manhattan has been overrun by animals and looks like a jungle is completely believable.....

We saw it about a week or so ago. I really liked it!

I'm reading the book and just after a couple of chapters, I can already see huge differences. There are apparently 2 other movies based on the book that weren't very good, but I wonder if they're any closer to the source.

Zeus wrote:

Anarky wrote:I loved the blaitent product placement of the Ford Shelby GT500

What the fuck are you talking about? Will Smith driving a brand new Ford with showroom-quality wax and paint job 3 years after the entire civilization has been destroyed to the point where all of Manhattan has been overrun by animals and looks like a jungle is completely believable.....

Wow... I didn't think about it closely enough

it was good. up until more people showed up. then it spiraled into pure shit. WIll was fuckng awesome and then.....whapow....the movie goes to shit. sad....

I am Omega is totally better...

It's got the host of iron chef america....and instead of being all scientisty he kicks ass with his martial arts skills....it's like a shitty kung-fu version...and fuck me it's actually better thanks to the ending of I am Legend

Anarky wrote:

Zeus wrote:

Anarky wrote:I loved the blaitent product placement of the Ford Shelby GT500

What the fuck are you talking about? Will Smith driving a brand new Ford with showroom-quality wax and paint job 3 years after the entire civilization has been destroyed to the point where all of Manhattan has been overrun by animals and looks like a jungle is completely believable.....

Wow... I didn't think about it closely enough

There was also that perfect-quality Explorer at the very end......

Only the revealing of the new Camero in Transformers was more blatant marketing.

I just saw this today and damn... nice. I will admit now I can laugh, I didn't think about what Zeus said-- the cars being in showroom quality is pretty funny.

The movie was pretty damn nice... the only thing I didn't like is they obviously show the audience that the infected people had built a social structure contrary to what Will's character thought. The man pissed off that Will stole his mate, him laying that trap, the attack on the building-- it was all led by one specific guy who seemed to be a leader. I thought that was a big fucking deal but they never talked about it.

Also would have liked to learn more about how the virus had mutated-- I mean if it spread as quickly as it seemed to have you wonder how it missed the clinical trials.


The ending was alright, but the whole "god has a plan" thing a la Signs was pretty crappy and I didn't like it. The butterfly was just like "swing away."

Other than that it was a freakin awesome movie.

Tessian wrote:
The movie was pretty damn nice... the only thing I didn't like is they obviously show the audience that the infected people had built a social structure contrary to what Will's character thought. The man pissed off that Will stole his mate, him laying that trap, the attack on the building-- it was all led by one specific guy who seemed to be a leader. I thought that was a big fucking deal but they never talked about it.

THERE!!

That was what was bugging me--it was like they have a subplot and then they don't do anything about it--it's an ultimately very big plothole.

I think that, either the ideas about a vampire society were cut from the film to streamline it (or to make the new ending sit better) or else we're overthinking it and they just made one vampire a bad guy so that we'd have a villain to boo and hiss at.

So, either it was cut by big bad producers, or it was never there to begin with. I'll have to see if there's an alternate ending in teh DVD version.

We're not reading into it too much... they make it pretty damned obvious in many scenes that at least that one infected man is not normal. He led the attacks at the pier and the house and controlled the dogs during the trap.