It had been a long time since I saw a good horror movie.

Swagat hai aapka kaun banega Crorepati dwitya mein!

Aur ye raha 2 crore rupaiye ke liye aapka sawaal… 

The world is on the verge of end but there is someone in the world who would not let this happen. He makes his family safe and himself goes against the odds to save the world. He tries..fails. Then suddenly something makes him realise that he was almost correct and he finds the solution, sometimes minutes before he dies or sometimes being alive.

The Story:
The above theme has been used in God knows how many movies and the new release “I am Legend” is no different. The protagonist(Dr. Neville), played by Will Smith, who is a scientist and a soldier, decides to save/revive the city of New York from the incurable virus that has spread in the city. The virus has made living beings violent and the skin is prone to melting by Ultraviolet rays, which makes it impossible for infected people to get out in the sunlight. This is the time, when Dr. Neville gets out in the open to gather basic requirements and subjects for experiments from the city. He is carrying out experiments in his laboratory in the basement of his house, where he performs tests on rats (and later humans). He gets disappointed with all the results failing to make any impact and just then he realises that one of his subject rats shows lesser signs of violence. He captures a living human and performs the same test on him just to realise that the test does not works for humans. He is disappointed. The next day he gets trapped and while escaping it starts getting dark. The infected animals attack him and his dog. The dog saves him but itself gets infected. Doctor has to kill it and loses his mind.
Next night, he goes out in open at night. All these zombie-type humans attack him. He kills some but they are too many in number. He is trapped.
Some lady comes and saves him. But the infected people get to know Dr. Neville’s place and they attacked him the next day. While hiding from them, he finds out that the experiment on humans has been successful. He hands over the solution to the lady and makes him leave.
He dies. Humans saved. Movie ends.

The movie succeeds in engaging people till last 10-15 minutes where the director fails miserably to contain the excitement built up so far. The ending sequence seems being fitted forcibly to the movie and it actually ruins the movie in whole. Further movie doesn’t even try to explain how come Dr. Neville gets immune to the virus, while there is no other individual in the city unaffected?? How come all the basic services (electricity/water etc.) still in place although no individual is left to work??
Even if we ignore these questions, the last 15 minutes are not anything to let go easily.

Unlike Aaja Nachle, where despite no excitement you come out happy after the movie, here you come out feeling sorry for your decision to spend 150 bucks on such a movie.

Overall movie gets 2 stars out of 5
Positives:

• Will Smith
• Well directed..a few fancy sequences
• Well carried movie theme till last 15 minutes
• Effective use of sound effects

Negatives:

• Last 15 minutes ruined all the above positives
• The two questions (raised above) left unattempted

Recommendation:
There are a lot of movies on the same theme and you must have seen atleast a couple of them and you may like to skip this one.

Originally Posted at Abhi’s Space

It is not a new movie but I had not seen it then.
I had heard a lot about it but watching it was really a different experience.

“Sierra Leone,1999
Civil war rages for control of the diamond fields.
Thousands have died and Millions have become refugees.
None of whom has ever seen a diamond.”

The people are innocent. They have never seen a diamond. To them, it is just another white piece of stone but they are still being killed for it. Children are doped and trained to take lives…to help fighting in struggle for motherland!! (something which is already yours!) All foreigners are our enemies!!(Is there any rational at all!)
And all this just to make some money..OK a lot of money.. but is it still worth the cause!! On one hand we claim of distributive effect of money (poor benefits from rich getting richer) and this is what rich do to get more richer!!

Greed is such a vice that it can make any rational human being do such pathetic acts.

I appreciate the director/producer’s effort to bring up the issue to public..and I agree to my friend’s words, “Movies are biggest source of learning after Reading”.

The closing message of the movie was not just a mere consolation but also a warning. This needs to be stopped..at least for the sake of humanity.

“In January 2003, forty nations signed “The Kimberley Process”–an effort to stem the flow of conflict diamonds.
But illegal diamonds still find their way to market.
It is up to the consumer to insist that a diamond is conflict-free.
Sierra Leone is at peace.
But there are still 200,000 child soldiers in Africa”

Stop smuggling Blood Diamonds.
Stop selling Blood Diamonds.
Stop buying Blood Diamonds.

I suggest Ban the company even if a single case in this regard is reported..The world wont be any different without the Diamonds but the presence of diamonds is making such a big difference!!