I am Legend 12/19/07

Will Smith continues his one man show in I Am Legend, an apocalyptic zombie movie that is surprisingly boring. I haven't had the oppurtunity to comment on it yet, but I wonder if anyone else has noticed Will Smith tendency to stray away from projects that have any sense of ensemble in them. For the last four years he's hasn't shown up onscreen with any other A-list star. His last co-star was Tommy Lee Jones in "Men in Black II" in 2003. Yes, I don't really count Martin Lawrence in "Bad Boys II" Kevin James in "Hitch," his son in "Pursuit of Happyness," or the robots in "I-Robot." 
Here his costars are zombies. But these aren't normal zombies that lurch about in bad makeup. These run really fast and are very obviously computer generated. Whenever you see them, they screech and croach really annoyingly. It's more irritating than frightening.
People will probably be surprised by how many slow and silent scenes this movie has. Will Smith talks to himself most of the time, and seriously, for a rocket scientist he doesn't have that interesting of conversations. I've watched two other movies this year that featured guys that talked to themselves. Emile Hirsch talked to the wilderness in "Into the Wild," and Ryan Gosling talked to a sex doll in "Lars and the Real Girl." Both were funnier and more interesting. It's weird that I would recommend these movies in the place of a huge blockbuster, but actually they have alot in common. And with what's in common these other movies are superior. 
This movie has a real lowest common denominator feel to it. Things are kept very simple, dumbed down one may say. The dialogue is atrocious. There's a problem when a charachter starts watching Shrek, and what's happening between the donkey and ogre is more engaging than the storyline. 
Then there's a bunch of plot holes and implausibilities like how did that woman just fight off a bunch of zombies to save Will Smith, and exactly how smart are the zombies (Did they just construct a booby trap?). The action scenes I guess are pretty good, although I think they tried a bit too hard. Next time give me real enemies, not superfast digital effects that scream their heads off.
I guess New York completely devastated and empty is cool, but that's really not enough to recommend the picture.

The Pursuit of Happyness 02/08/07

:fresh: This movie is very plain, but that goes with the territory. It's a no frills, reality based story. Will Smith plays an extraordinary man who was cut to the brink of losing it all but out of superhuman endurance pulls through. A documentary on this guy, or just an interview would be just as interesting as seeing Will Smith play him superbly. (I don't know if I'm the only one to catch the coincidence. But how Will Smith in "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" gets into Princeton is by impressing the man with a rubix cube. The man he plays in this story does the same to get a chance at an internship. Weird huh.) Very good movie.