Lumberyard night at the movies

Either my taste is going Disney, or we just hit a bad run of flicks.

This weekend was a movie weekend in the Lumberyard. We hit the local Blockbuster, so Saturday night we watched I Am Legend with Will Smith and Sunday featured Enchanted from Disney. They're pretty much opposite ends of the film spectrum. One's dark and brooding and the other is so bright and cheerful you could almost puke.

Both had pretty good reviews and neither really jumped up in the Lumberyard list of really great movies.

I Am Legend had some very cool special effects, but as a story...just dragged along. It was a mercifully short movie that had very little substance. The reviews said Will Smith carried the movie. I don't think his arms were very full. He did a good job of portraying a man who has been alone for a long time, and the nightmare-ish insanity that would be part of that existence, but that's not enough to make a movie. Tom Hanks did it in Cast Away, but he had more to work with. I know it was a remake (but I never saw it) and based on a novel (I never read) of the same name. Must have been a pretty thin one. I didn't dislike the movie, but I didn't like it either, and one viewing was definitely enough. It was one of those "glad I didn't spend theater money on this" kind of movies. If it showed up on my coffee table next week, or on HBO, and I had nothing to do for an afternoon, I'd go find something else.

Enchanted was pretty corny, but had it's funny and cute parts. It's so saccharine-y sweet it makes fun of itself. The signature song of the movie is still stuck in my head, and it does a great job of pointing out the absurdity of Disney movie assumptions thrown into a real world. Of the two, I liked it more, and it had more of a plot to work with. So, cheesy, but kinda cute cheesy. I'd watch it again if it showed up on HBO and I had time to kill.