SEVEN POUNDS.

When I saw the trailer for this, I thought it looked really good. However, as I was going into the movie, I still didn’t know what I was going to be seeing. Unfortunately, I still didn’t know what I was seeing until about halfway into the movie. Ben Thomas (Will Smith) is supposedly an IRS Agent going around doing a bunch of really big favors for seven different strangers, and for reasons unbeknownst to the audience. The first we meet is a blind man named Ezra (Woody Harrelson), who Ben is a complete jackass to. But then we come across Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson), a young woman with congenial heart disease. The relationship between Emily and Ben builds until they become more romantically linked. But Ben still has his mysterious mission to complete, even if it’s now become slightly complicated.

Let me start off by saying I thought the film was really good. I enjoyed it quite a bit. However, it tries to be too much of a mystery to the point where you really have no idea what’s happening… ever. Is Ben really the douche he seemed to be within the first ten minutes? Why is he helping these strangers? How are they connected? Or are they? Is he really helping them out, or is it part of something greater? What the hell is his plan, anyway? Everything about it is spoken in such ambiguous terms, it was almost like hearing “You know that plan about that thing we talked about that one time at that place? Well, it’s the next one’s turn now in the process of the thing I’m doing which you know of because of our history together… you know, because we know each other from sometime back in the day.” There were really moments where the movie almost felt like it was going out of its way to stay mysterious. Though the second it shows one of the first flashback glimpses of what occurred, everything snaps together and the movie becomes easier to follow. But this is two-fold, because this moment happens at the middle of the film (or so). So you’ve just gone through the first half of the film shrouded in confusing mystery, but now you’re going through the last half of the film with everything easily figured out.

However, those were really the only issues I had, and they really didn’t bother me all that much. I’ve read other reviews stating things like the movie is very slow moving, or it’s overly sappy or whatever. I didn’t have any of these issues. I felt that maybe the first 10 or 15 minutes or so were a bit confusing, especially in trying to figure out what kind of person Ben Thomas is (douche or saint?), but besides that I didn’t find it slow moving at all. And there’s some romance in there, and there’s a lot of heartfelt moments (no pun intended) that add up, but I didn’t think it was overwhelming at all.

In fact, Will Smith has shown once again that he can carry a movie. He did a very fine acting performance here. You never know what’s going on in his head, but you can always tell how conflicted or sorrowful or happy or whatnot he is just by looking at his face. He really dug himself into the character. The same with Rosario Dawson, too, who really showed that pain of not being able to live her life to the fullest because of her heart condition. But the one person I want to give the shout out to here is Woody Harrelson. He’s not in the movie very much, but he’s always a presence in the back of your mind, and I think that says something about how he pulled off the character. I constantly wanted to see what was going to happen next with his character, and he’s really only in the movie about 3 times, each time less than 5 minutes.

So besides some editing (or possibly writing) issues, I thought the movie was very good. It does tug at the emotions. It makes you happy when you’re supposed to be, sad when you’re supposed to be, and even uncomfortable when you’re supposed to be. I think that says something about the actors and actresses, because it was really all about the acting once you got the story figured out.

I Am McLovin!

HANCOCK.

You know when you’re watching a movie and you zone out, but you’re knocked back into the movie every now and then… and when you are, you feel as if you missed something important, or a good, solid scene in the movie? With Hancock, the entire first half of the movie is like that, but without needing to zone out. Hancock (Will Smith) is an alcoholic superhero with amnesia, and every time he tries to do something for the good of society, he ends up screwing up and making the situations even worse. But after Hancock saves the life of a failing public relations professional, Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), Ray decides to try and turn Hancock’s public persona around, even if it’s against the wishes of Ray’s wife, Mary (Charlize Theron).

That’s about as best as I can describe the plot, even though the entire latter half of the movie has nothing to do with that. In fact, the second half of the movie is more of the consequences of what occurred in the first half… sort of. As I alluded to at the beginning of the review, I enjoyed the second half of the movie much more than the first half. The first half just lacked substance, meat, or heart, if you will. It just zipped through the plot like the movie version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire shot through the first 200 pages of the book in 15 minutes. That’s the best way I can describe it.

But I can’t say, specifically, what I liked about the movie, because that gets into spoiler territory. So all I can really say is my favorite part of the movie all occurred in the second half (though it was alluded to a few times in the first half) and dealt with the superhero lore. I thought that was really creative/imaginative, and I really wished they had dealt more time of the movie on that, as well as the connection between two specific characters. Hopefully if the movie does well enough to garner a sequel, the sequel will do it there.

However, on a similar subject, the movie set itself up for the perfect villain, but then decided not to go that route. Instead, we get really surface-level, shallow villains with no real substance or… anything. They’re just boring and non-special in every way.

The last real thing to complain about would be whoever the heck controlled the camera (or the director, if it was all his idea, which it most likely was). I’m rarely ever conscious of camera choices, but I could never get comfortable in the movie because of it. It liked to get right up in every character’s face in a tight close up (usually used to give everybody a feel of claustrophobia), even if everybody was in a wide-open space. And there was an incredible preference for the zoom button and shaky-cam; as in, the camera would be shaking about like a Bourne movie, and then the cameraman would hit the zoom button so to, very noticeably, shoot in even more on an actor’s face. I noticed it moreso in the first half of the movie than the second half, though. However, I loved the editing work for the climax of the movie, juxtaposing what was going on between Hancock and a certain other character. I thought that was brilliant.

Now on to some good stuff. As for the acting, it was done nicely all around the board. I can’t say much more about it, really. The villains could have been better, as I stated, but I think that was more of a scripting issue than an acting issue (…at least for the most part). The visual effects were stunning, specifically in the second half of the movie with stormy weather fight and the climax battle. The movie was relatively funny, as I did laugh quite a few times. Though I did come off rather negatively in this review, I did enjoy it quite a bit. It was entertaining enough, though it could have been so much better with the potential it had. And they should have concentrated more on the superhero lore. In other words, I think the movie could have been helped by a longer time frame; perhaps another 30 minutes or more. Otherwise, it was pretty good.

I Am McLovin!

I AM LEGEND.

First of all, this is NOT a remake of The Omega Man or The Last Man on Earth. This is an adaptation from the book I Am Legend, which both Omega and Last Man were based on, as well. There is a difference.

Anyway, this is not going to be a typical book-to-film adaptation review for one very important reason: I’ve never read the book, so I can’t judge. I only know a couple of things about the book: Robert Neville was a white guy and… well… the ending. The first thing was obviously changed.

Anyway, on to the review. From the opening of the movie with a great cameo appearance by Emma Thompson, the movie seems to be heading in a good direction. The abandoned and lonely city of New York looks amazing (and brings me back to the abandoned London of 28 Days Later…, which I believe was also a bit inspired by the book). The movie takes us back and forth between the loneliness and hardships of Robert Neville (Will Smith) and his dog, Sam, and flashbacks of the city’s, as well as his family’s, evacuation. They work together well to move the story along.

Though there really isn’t much of a plot. It’s more of a character study on the sanity of the apparent last man on Earth. You see breaks in his sanity here and there, which Smith portrays amazingly. The ‘Fred’ scene, and what follows it, is one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the entire movie.

But it’s not just a psychological drama. Oh no, there’s monsters and scares galore. The basic premise of the movie is that after finding a cure for cancer and using it on humans, the cure (a fixed-up strand of the Measles) mutates and turns everybody who isn’t immune into a mutant vampire creature. The tense scenes are truly tense. I admit that I did jump a couple of times, as well. You get attached to Robert and his dog and do care for what happens to them (it’s hard not to, since they’re the only two characters on screen for large portions of the movie).

The only downside to the movie is the special effects. Almost everything that wasn’t Robert and Sam were digital effects. All of the animals (deer, lions, rats, dogs, etc.) and all of the vampires weren’t real… and you could tell. Some of them were well done. The lions, for instance, and some of the deer looked really good. The vampires, however… could have used some work. They were kinda similar to the vamps in 30 Days of Night, except digital. There was one vamp that looks okay (I think they showed him the most, assuming it was the same one. I think it was)… but, yeah, overall the effects could have been a bit better… OR they could have just used real people in makeup (*gasp*).

But overall, it was a great character study, and Will Smith’s acting was amazing for the part. He really was able to pull off the psychological deterioration of being alone for three years. There were tense/scary parts that worked, especially for PG-13, there were funny parts, and there were sad parts. It was the special effects parts that could have been better.

I give I Am Legend a Keanu ‘Whoa’.