As you can tell from the incredibly creative title, I don’t much like to beat around the proverbial bush (nor any bush, for that matter).
Unless you’ve been living under an extremely large, moss-covered rock for the past couple weeks, you know that there’s a new Will Smith flick in theaters. The Fresh Prince has long been considered the most bankable star in Hollywood, and his most recent effort (which had the third-highest December opening weekend of all time) is certainly no smudge on his track record. Simply put, the man puts asses in seats. That’s what he does.
However, if you’ve been living under even a slightly less than average-sized rock, you might have missed the far superior vampire movie that came out back in October. If you did, don’t get too down on yourself, because so did most people (and if you’re actually living under a slightly less than average-sized rock, for Pete’s sake, make like a hermit crab and upgrade!). What movie was this, you ask? (This is me stuffing words into your mouths. I do apologize for the excessively bitter taste.) Why, that would be 30 Days of Night, of course!
30 Days of Night, based on the original, breathtaking graphic novel created by Steve Niles (writer) and Ben Templesmith (artist), is a no-nonsense, survival-horror/gore-porn/vampire-slaughter-festival-in-the-snow that managed to achieve the following things:
(1.) Create a suspenseful, thrillingly-entertaining experience, led largely by a cast of no-names (no disrespect to Slevin Kelevra).
(2.) Preserve the tonal, and visual aesthetic (both in the marketing campaign, as well as within the film itself) of the source material.
(3.) Portray the most brutal, horrifying (although not nearly the most sexy) vampires that have ever graced the silver screen.
I Am Legend, based on the original, breathtaking, prose novel written by Richard Matheson, is a luke-warm/uninspired/Castaway-wannabe that manages to accomplish the following things:
(1.) Create an unyieldingly dull, suspense-free experience, led by the biggest movie star in the world, a dog, and a supporting cast of mannequins.
(2.) Completely eviscerate, re-hash, homogenize, and defile the source material, as it pertains to both the marketing campaign, as well as the content within the film. (And that’s to say nothing of the ending, which we will not speak of.)
(3.) Portray the silliest, sorriest, most un-scary group of ‘vampires’ that have ever disgraced the silver screen.
Now we know why every trailer purposely steered way clear of showing any dark seekers. Must have tested pretty poorly in the preliminary audience screenings. Ouch.
Truly, these things looked goofier than the Sh*t Demon in Dogma. The only difference is, the Sh*t Demon was supposed to be a joke, whereas the Dark Seekers in I.A.L. simply looked like they came from the animation alpha test for Reboot. 30 D.o.N. got it right by hiring unknown (as they did in the highly-entertaining, Dawn of the Dead remake), innately-frightening, ambiguously Eastern European-looking actors (and showcasing a female vampire’s scream that was absolutely disturbing), while in I.A.L., they opted to hire mo-cap actors, only to then cover them up with aforementioned sh*tty 3D CGI imagery. Seriously, had he come across them, the literary Robert Neville would laugh in the face of these things, and then promptly pimp-slap them, because Robert Neville’s pimp hand is way strong. Come wit it!
It’s really a shame, because I Am Legend was essentially gift-wrapped to be one of my (and many of your) favorite movies ever. It had the four basic food groups: good ol’ Bill Smith, blood-suckers, a sandbox-style post-apocalyptic environment full of imaginative violent possibilities, and awkward mannequin flirtation.
One thing’s for sure: I’d hate to be the guy responsible for the CGI Dark Seekers in I Am Legend. One can just imagine him on his next job interview:
Producer: So, I hear you worked on I Am Legend.
CGI Guy: Why yes I did, sir.
Producer: That’s pretty impressive. That Will Smith… seems like everything he touches…
(Turns his hands into the shape of two pistols)
Producer: Boom boom boom! It’s box office gold!
(Looks down at resume)
Producer: Oh… it says here you were the guy responsible for the sh*tty vampires.
CGI Guy: Um… well… yeah.
(Producer suddenly looks as if CGI Guy just rubbed his taint all over his mother’s face.)
Producer: Get the f*ck out of my office. Mark my words, you’ll never work in this town again! May God have mercy on your soul.
It really must suck when every single scene involving a battle between your film’s antagonists and Hollywood’s Golden Boy is trumped by a sequence in which a German Shepherd is choked to death.
