Movie review: I Am Legend

by John P. Meyer

Story-wise, the latest Will Smith starring vehicle, I Am Legend, ends up offering nothing substantial beyond what viewers of The Omega Man (1971) and The Last Man on Earth (1964) have already experienced. Which begs the question: why has this movie been remade - again?

There is a bit of a twist to the opening, which features the self-satisfied smug of Emma Thompson being interviewed on a network morning show; her character - a medical research scientist - has seemingly just discovered a cure for cancer.

That's the good news. The bad news: her "cure" involves a hybridized virus, highly contagious, which eventually renders the victims (i.e., patients) either dead or zombified, victims of a walking-death light-sensitive variety of rabies. This would be an example of a "bug" as opposed to a "feature."

There is one hope for mankind, though: Will Smith (as Robert Neville, another medical researcher, trying mightily to un-work what Emma Thompson has wrought). Not only is he fortuitously (and statistically improbably) immune to the whole rabid zombie hootenanny, he's making progress developing a vaccine to cure the afflicted using various derivatives of his own blood. Of course, for medical testing one requires medical subjects... and how he obtains them is an unsettlingly dark side of the story.

To director Francis Lawrence's credit, he's spent his studio mega-millions effectively in terms of the visuals, rendering lushly-detailed scenics of a New York City three years deserted, with grass and even small trees growing up through cracks in the concrete and buildings crumbling as if from natural erosion. Ominously, some multi-story structures seem to have been draped with plastic sheeting in the pre-apocalypse past, perhaps to protect their inhabitants (or those on the outside?) from the approaching viral doomsday.

Just as Chuck Heston did in Omega Man, Will tools around town at high speed in his Shelby Cobra GT (Chuck preferred a similar muscle car convertible, if memory serves). He establishes a regular route and comes to know it so well (through habitual travel) that he careens around blind corners choked with dead vehicles and onto tarp-obscured sidewalks at speeds which would demonstrate homicidal (and/or suicidal) tendencies under normally-populated circumstances.

We soon catch a glimpse of the scariest aspect by far of this movie: the future price of gas. In the year 2009 when the epidemic supposedly first hits, stations apparently sold it for $6.69/gallon. YIKES!

Smith/Neville's only living companion is a German Shepherd pooch named Sam, and this uncredited role is one of the best-acted ones in the movie ('course, there aren't a whole lot to choose from, as most of the cast are drooling zombies). Also appearing are a number of fashion mannequins placed around town by Neville in an effort to lend some semblance of humanity to his surroundings. The manner in which he chats with them while visiting the local video store is a nice touch: a particularly fetching female clotheshorse appears to be spending an inordinate amount of time glancing sidelong at the adult titles.

The music and philosophy of Bob Marley play a major role in the film, serving as a kind of safe harbor touchstone for Neville; "Three Little Birds" becomes a particularly oft-played favorite, its lyric rife with in-our-face irony. Eventually Neville is able to share his Marley-worship with another normal human being in the person of Anna (the delectable Alice Braga, on featured display in this obscure title) and her son Ethan (Charlie Tahan). These two are on their way to Vermont, rumored site of an outpost populated by unaffected human survivors of the virus. Will is reluctant to join them on their journey, believing that a) the outpost doesn't actually exist, and b) he's close to cracking the viral code which would unlock the secret to a cure, and that leaving the disease's "ground zero" would negatively impact his researches.

Mr. Smith's acting is understated and appropriately melancholy, befitting the last-man-alive underpinnings of his character. His demonstrated paranoia - entirely justified by circumstances - turns out to not strike quite deeply enough, considering the trap he ends up walking into. Keep your eyes peeled (and your M4 carbines loaded).

My biggest gripe: the ending, which diverges considerably from previous versions in (to my sensibilities) an unsatisfactory way. Judge for yourself whether it constitutes an improvement.

NO SH*T, SHERLOCK: "Social de-evolution appears complete." - Neville to tape recorder, regarding the behavior of his infected former-human neighbors

WHO DOESN'T?: "I like Shrek." - Neville to Anna and Ethan

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