MOVIE WRAP UP
I've seen two noteworthy movies in the last month: I Am Legend and No Country For Old Men.

1. I AM LEGEND
SPOILERS

I Am Legend is a vampire/zombie movie about the sole human survivor, a brilliant scientist living in Manhattan who spends his days trying to come up with a cure. Will Smith is really good in it, even if he is a little too sassy for a scientist who has seen the world die around him. But he carries the film and he does it well, not very unlike Tom Hanks in Cast Away. My problems with the film stem from the familiarity of it all. We've seen this stuff done before. Admittedly, this was shot and acted well. It was never boring. But I walked away feeling nothing.

The movie is based on a 60 year old book of the same name. The book was made into two movies previously, both with different titles. This remake retains the title, but completely changes the context of it! In the original book, the survivor, Robert Neville, spends his days killing vampires, who eventually evolve and take over the world in a new civilization. They regard Neville as a monster and kill him. His name becomes legend to the vampires, because he is like Dracula is to us; that is, a legend. In the new film, Neville cures the virus that causes the vampires and becomes a legend for saving the world. Blech.

So basically, my opinion is that it was a well-made movie with a sucky ending that could have been so much better if it was true to the book. It's good, but not worth the hype.

2. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

This is also based on a book, but one that I had not read. I am a Coen Brothers fan, but feel they've hit their peak and now just coast on fumes, a parody of their former glory. This movie reaffirms my love. This movie was written well, acted amazingly and directed perfectly. Except for the end.
The problem is that the film is full of symbolism and the actual plot is secondary. The story involves a drug deal gone wrong and a hunt for the stolen money. But it's much more than that. It's about the slide of humanity. It's about how things are getting worse. It;'s about the unstoppable force that is pushing our civilization to its brink. This all becomes clear in a tone-shifting, momentum-retarding final act that drags the whole thing down to a crawl before ending abruptly. That's my only complaint. The dialogue was excellent. The movie had me grinning with excitement all the way through until the aforementioned ending. I wasn't excited at the action, per se, but at the brilliant filmmaking.

I am now reading the book. It's pretty great. The dialogue I loved so much from the movie came right from the book, part and parcel. The movie is a very accurate retelling of the novel. As of right now I think I like the movie better, but I think the book is great, too. It's by Cormac McCarthy. This is the second book of his I've read. The first was The Road and it blew my socks off. I may have to investigate his other works.