Day 363, on which Will Smith's dog dies [29.12.10]

Dag tre hundrede treogtres. Productive day again today, I seem to be having a lot of them recently. I'm on a roll. At the moment I'm stuck trying to build an AMC Eagle (car) for the LUGNuts whateverth challenge. And it's a real nightmare. I've got a rough chassis, bonnet and roof combo sorted out and just about stable enough to be held by one hand without breaking into a total mess of crappy connections and bad brick maths. My current problem, apart from the inevitable 'it won't fit a fig', is that I can't fit any wheels in. Anywhere. Nowhere is there enough space, or the right space, or space in the right place to fit four wheels, let alone two. So I'm having a slight nightmare. But I won't resort to cutting a wheel in half and sticking it to the bottom of the car. NEVAR.

Fairytrail of New York

Imagine a world, just like ours, but deserted. No one left. The world is a barren post-apocalyptic wasteland, inhabited by weird diseased zombies and cars and nothing much else. In New York (WOAH never saw that coming), one man survives. Well, three main things survive. Will Smith. His dog. His six-pack. These are basically the main characters of I Am Legend, there are a couple of  'also-starred's such as Will Smith's gun, Will Smith's annoying-as-fuck daughter (yes his actual daughter. Yes, her. The one who plagues our radios with her awful song. Yes, the one you that makes you wish you had a pistol to point to your head in sorrow for your poor ears) and a bunch of zombies.

I wouldn't usually watch a zombie film. I normally hate the idea of zombies. They're up there with vampires and Frankenstein-style monsters. That kind of supernatural slash fantastical being that always shows up in the same type of film. Frankenstein-style monsters are usually in spooky gothic films that appear every five years or so, we all know what atrocities of filmmaking star vampires nowadays, and zombies are for all-out horror action films like 27 Days and they're also stars of many a mindless video game (sorry L4D fans). I originally thought I Am Legend was different, I thought it was a normal, realistic post-apocalyptic film, but not as boringly realistic as The Road, which is slit-your-wrists depressing. Then I saw a clip which featured the 'zombies' and I feared that I Am Legend was just another zombie film. It has a lot more style than your everyday freak flick, plus it has Will Smith in it, so it's badass and 27 Days isn't (just, no. No. No, Danny Boyle).

Now I finally got a chance to watch it, and badass it was not. Which, it turned out, was good. Will Smith didn't have any of his usual Samuel L. Jackson-esque lines. He wasn't a badass mo-fo. He never had it with those motherfuckin' zombies in that motherfuckin' city. He was surprisingly soft, acted very well and as a result much more interesting. Though we did have to see his six-pack a couple of times in the movie, he kept his usual boisterousness restrained. And why? Because he had no one to be boisterous to. That's the beauty of casting Will Smith in this movie; he's all on his own and that brings out some true acting skills. He can't be charming or a badass, 'cause he has no one to charm (apart from a few mannequins) and no one to be a badass to. And he's pretty amazing in I Am Legend, let me tell you that. The best performance I've seen from him yet. Yes, even better than The Pursuit of Happyness, which was an awful movie.

This superb performance (especially the 'What are you doing here!?' and dog death scenes) makes up for the fact he wangled the producers to give his daughter, Willow Smith, a small part in the film. Luckily she isn't in it for long (not long enough to whip her goddamn hair, thank goodness. I'd like to whip a bat into her face), so we're saved from that. OK, so you probably want a plot summary: Will Smith is a doctor who is living in the ruins of New York (duh) trying to find a cure for a disease which turns people into the boilerplate 'zombie', biting, pale and wanting to eat people or some such trait. You see, Emma Thompson (in a crazy one-scene role in this film) found a cure for cancer but it turned out to be a nasty virus and it's screwed up the world. These zombies come out at night (the light, it BUUUUUUUUURNS) and eat and stuff, but Will Smith keeps in the daytime, experimenting and shooting deer and basically having a nice-but-lonely time with his dog, Sam.

Will Smith doesn't even need a bed. All he needs is a bath and a dog for a good night's sleep. MEANINGS?!?!1/!?!1/1/11!?

I can't be bothered to do a full review here as I don't think I have it in me and I'll only slag off Willow Smith more (I WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTH I WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTH), so I'll sum it up here. I Am Legend is a top-rate film that isn't perfect, nor is it ground-breaking, but it's a solid, well-styled post-apocalyptic movie with a killer main performance by Will Smith (he made his daughter's name around his own (WILLow) so people find her when they google him). Sure, the CGI isn't as good as it could be, and some of the plot devices are not developed enough, but a lot of the plot devices are spot-on and the film kept me glued to my seat for two hours. It was well and truly gripping. And you can't tell me that a film which made me wish I couldn't blink to miss a scary bit isn't a good film. I strongly advise you to see it if you're into post-apoc or Will Smith or Will Smith's six-pack. It's a great example of all three.

~John

ps. I WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTHI WHIP MA HAIR BACK AN FORTH