Zomgee

Hancock. Now this was a movie I’ve been waiting to see. I have to admit that I wanted to see this more than Indiana Jones. More than Hulk and The Happening too.

I figured that I’d be disappointed by this movie, but I could hope for the best, at least. I try not to read too much about movies before they come out (other that the MPAA rating and such) just so when a movie is nothing like the few previews I saw of it, I’ll be surprised.

That’s exactly the case in this movie. I went in thinking it’d be a comedy where Will Smith starts out a super hero bum and turns into a Men In Black agent-esque crime fighting champion. A black comedy meets Spiderman perhaps. Of course, when you think about it that way, it doesn’t sound like a great movie.

I don’t want to give anything away about the storyline, but if you’re looking for the Will Smith comedy routine, you’ll get a bit of it, but so much more. (continue reading…)

Let me first start off by saying: “Wow.” I don’t even know where to begin with this movie.

Will Smith. Who knew he could match or beat his performance in The Pursuit of Happyness. This is by far his best movie to date. He is naturally funny in all his movies and in the movie previously mentioned, he shows a softer, more genuine side. This is … quite departure from, or rather, an extension of those previous roles. He makes you laugh, he makes you cry, he makes you feel like Chuck Norris needs to watch his back.

If you’ve been totally oblivious to the overall plot of this movie, that’s ok. If you’d like to keep it that way, stop reading. I won’t spoil, however.

It’s a few years into the future and a cure-for-cancer-turned-zomgee-creating virus has done its job. Granted, nobody could have foreseen it, but it happened nonetheless. Robert Neville (Smith) spends his time living in a post-apocalyptic New York City, similar to a thawed-out NYC from The Day After Tomorrow; London from Reign of Fire, substituting zomgees for dragons; or a non-raised-eyebrow version of Planet of the Apes. There’s something oddly thrilling about imagining life alone and having free reign of the world’s largest city. The flashbacks you see in the previews are actually spread out through the entire movie. They are quite predictable but provide a … completeness as to why Neville chose to stay behind. Thankfully, the writer’s don’t go overboard with Neville taking on the zomgees or trying to find their source and eliminating them. No, instead he hides away, avoiding contact while trying to find a cure.Technically, it was a good movie. I don’t recommend buying the soundtrack, as you’ll get about 5 minutes of audio and 4 of those minutes are from a Bob Marley record. Some people have criticized the CG effects, but a) compared to even 3 years ago, they are amazing, and b) when almost 100% of your landscape is CG, you sacrifice quality for quantity. The quality, however, was not distracting in any way. The acting was incredible, there’s really nothing more to say about that. I am slow, but willing, to say that he bested Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Besides, dog > volleyball any day.To summarize, it was a uncomplicated movie that was epically thrilling (more thrilling than Signs, less epic than LotR) with an amazing acting job by Will Smith in an environment that’s strangely … cool.

In Top Gear fashion, I present my board of best movies of 2007 so far:

1. I Am Legend (95)
2. Transformers (92*)
3. Live Free or Die Hard (88*)
4. Bourne Ultimatum (86*)
5. Spider-Man 3 (84*)
6. 3:10 to Yuma (80*)
7. Pirates 3 (78*)

* denotes a relatively scaled system since I don’t have a per-item scale for them