I Am Legend Review
by [email protected] (sdo230 AT gmail DOT com)December 18th, 2007
I Am Legend
reviewed by Samuel Osborn
Director: Francis Lawrence
Screenplay: Akiva Goldsmith, Mark Protosevich (based on the screenplay to The Omega Man and the novel by Richard Matheson)
Cast: Will Smith
MPAA Classification: PG-13
I live around Washington Square Park where much of I Am Legend was filmed. Watching as the production mounted, bunches of fake trees sprouted up, Will Smith sped about in soldier's garb, yelling from the back of a government SUV, and dozens of men painted white sprinted around growling like zombie vampires; the scene did not inspire confidence. But such is a testament to movie magic. I snuggled under the monstrosity of an IMAX theatre Friday at midnight (admittedly for that exclusive Dark Knight clip that was included!) and suffice it to say I was floored to find such a sophisticated feat of blockbuster mastery. This is why we go to the movies, folks.
Adapted both from the original novel by Richard Matheson and the 1971 script to The Omega Man, I Am Legend tells a story you've heard before. But a good tale could always use some updating and here the promotion is in the IQ department. Told mostly as a post-apocalyptic "slice of life," Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsmith's script spins a non-narrative tale almost devoid of traditional plot. Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the last remaining uninfected man on Manhattan Island. Gloriously rendered shots of the desolated metropolis prove this point satisfactorily as Neville and his trusty dog Sam perform their daily rituals in abandoned Gotham. They eat breakfast (and their vegetables) and wander designated blocks of each city district, ousting and researching the Dark Seekers who reside in the shadows.
Backstory seems to have become necessary. Through the occasional flashback, it's revealed that a cure for Cancer had mutated into an evolved form of rabies, which soon became airborne. What didn't kill the 90% of those infected turned the humans into creatures of furious aggression, requiring both blood and darkness to survive. Whether or not these beasts fall under the respective categories of vampires or zombies will fuel debates among sci-fi cultists for years. For now let's just call the Vombies. Comprising 9.9% of the remaining 10% of the population, that final slice of the pie chart goes to those miraculously immune. This includes Robert Neville, the Lieutenant Colonel charged with solving the pandemic crisis. Three years later, all of known civilization ravaged, Neville still remains at 11 Washington Square Place, his family lost, only his dog for companionship, and with a super-sophisticated laboratory worthy of Q from Bond in his basement. Here he searches for the cure. He is, quite fittingly for a Will Smith character, humanity's last hope.
Instead of splattering brains, I Am Legend is more interested in stimulating them. This is an impressively cerebral take on the post- apocalypse sub-genre. The gorgeous images of an abandoned metropolis seek more to develop Robert Neville than to tear him to bloody shreds. Director Francis Lawrence (Constantine) understands that in order for us to believe in an apocalyptic world, we first have to believe in its sole inhabitant. Not as singularly narrative as Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road (also soon to become a movie), but more humanly told than the camp that is Charlton Heston in The Omega Man, I Am Legend's insistence on steadily tracking Neville through his day finally shies away at the final minutes. The Vombies smarten up, as such baddies tend to do, and set a boobie trap for poor Neville. Another human character is introduced (I won't give away too much) and suddenly we're on the tracks of any other 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, and "Gee Wiz the World's Ending!" movie around.
But it's lazy to claim I Am Legend cops out near its end. The final sequences are admittedly rushed and slightly convoluted, but are executed as such to avoid hitting upon too many clichés. It's impossibly difficult to satisfyingly end a blockbuster these days. Audiences want a happy ending but scoff at the cliché; they shy away from ambiguous experimentation but skulk at the tragic end. I Am Legend ends itself efficiently, nearly sustaining its earlier brilliance. There are so many moments of sheer, feral wonder at Mr. Lawrence's crippled world and at the rage of its devolved inhabitants, that I Am Legend becomes not a horror picture, but man's first adventure with its new humanity.
Samuel Osborn
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
