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the shaky-cam really needs to be retired already…

By Fred Richardson

In the last few months, the adaptations of novels to film have been coming rapid-fire, some good, some not. This week sees the third movie of Richard Matheson’s 1954 I Am Legend. Ironically, it is the least faithful to the original, yet the first to retain the title. First was 1964’s The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price, then came The Omega Man in 1971 with Charlton Heston. I’ve read the novel and seen the Heston movie, but it’s been a number of years in both cases, so I went into the Will Smith version with a fairly open mind and clean palate. I’m very glad I did.

Director Francis Lawrence and scriptwriters Mark Potosevitch and Akiva Goldsman change just about every major element of the novel from setting all the way to the ending. Usually this spells disaster for an adaptation but not in this case. The script isn’t terribly original in any real way, but it’s passable. What makes the film a little bit better than average is Will Smith. Like George Clooney, Smith has managed to actually learn how to act in roles outside his comfort zone of stardom. Both stars also have mannerisms that are immediately recognizable but have of late become more subtle and integrated into the characters they play. (A bit of interesting trivia here- Smith’s real-life daughter plays his kid in Legend, just like his son played his son in The Pursuit of Happyness.)

In the end, I Am Legend is a little better than your average blockbuster star-vehicle but not something that will really bear repeated viewings. The story differs enough from the book that I can encourage those who see the movie to seek it out and enjoy. Oh, and the shaky-cam really needs to be retired already. I don’t want to feel like I’m running alongside a character in the movie when I know I’m really sitting in a chair.

The Golden Compass

Now for another book-turned-movie, the adaptation of Phillip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, the first in the His Dark Materials trilogy. This is going to be a short, strange review for a couple of reasons. First off, I read the books a good while back and don’t remember them with any real specificity. And then there’s the problem of not having seen the whole film. The theater I went to had major power problems about three-fourths of the way through the showing I was attending. This wasn’t the fault of the theater’s management in any way. In fact the whole area lost power multiple times over a full 24 hours. Unfortunately my other (bill paying) job prevented me from getting back to finish the movie before my deadline.

My initial, incomplete impression of The Golden Compass isn’t a good one. As many other adaptations of fantasy novels do, the movie is really lacking in coherent narrative flow. Instead of telling a character’s story and sneaking in all the info we need to understand how this particular reality works, we get explanations and eye-candy without being introduced to anyone we might care about.

So with my non-spoiler policy, I can’t explain the world or set-up to you at all because that’s all the movie really is. Should you see it? Maybe? If you’ve read the books, you might give a rat’s ass about the characters enough to enjoy it, but you might be irritated at the changes. If you have a love of nifty visuals and interesting production design, you might like it if you can stay awake through the bland exposition. If you like good actors you might enjoy watching the characters in individual scenes but without being invested in the story, will it matter? Unless the last 15-25 minutes are mind-blowing, I’d say just wait for DVD. I’ll try to catch the end of the movie soon and make a note on the Web site and in the next column.