I Am Legend

Title: I Am Legend
Director: Francis Lawrence
Cast: Will Smith, Alive Braga, Dash Mihok
Year: 2007
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi and action violence.
Date of Review: January 3, 2007

The “last person on Earth” scenario is not exactly new, so it seemed the general feeling with most movie-goers going to see I Am Legend was apathy. Of course, Warner Bros. spilled a lot of money into its production and advertising, since it was their big release of the season - but with the wave of zombie films over the past half decade, coupled with the generally tired “one/few people left alive” plot device, “rehash” was the word on everyone’s minds. And they were partly right.

I Am Legend is the third adaptation of Richard Matheson’s cult classic short novel of the same name. The first version, released in 1964 under the name The Last Man on Earth, starred Vincent Price and was an Italian production. While it remains the most faithful adaptation of the book, it suffers from some needless narration, and a lot of hoakiness due to the dubbing-over of the non-English speaking cast. The second adaptation, released in 1971, was titled The Omega Man and has become somewhat of a “Saturday at Midnight” classic. Stylistically influenced by the emerging blaxploitation scene, it was a cheesy affair but with some great elements. Now 2007's I Am Legend has come around and is arguably the most unfaithful to the source material of all three films, but it’s also the most effective, and upon my second viewing of the film I left the theatre wondering exactly how they managed to do this.

Richard Matheson’s story may be my favorite book. It’s easy to see how Stephen King was inspired by a book like this, as it takes a horrific surface story and creates something more out of it. It’s a story that stands the tests of time, due to its themes of loneliness and isolation which everyone in the world can derive something from. In the story, Robert Neville is the last man left alive on Earth, which is now a wasteland populated by vampires - though the word “vampire” is never used, it’s safe to say that’s what they are, since they have fangs, drink blood, burn up in sunlight, and are allergic to crucifixes and garlic. But despite these horrible conditions, the real depth in the story occurs in the scenes without monsters, when Neville spends his days all alone, searching the city streets for possible survivors. He wrestles with his past and personal demons, and must fight horrible urges, such as the sexual desire he feels when he sees a female vampire’s naked body - though she is rotten and disfigured, Neville has been alone a very, very long time. Neville is the hero of the story, but he is not a knight in shining armor, or some weapon-clad deadshot - he’s just the man who happened to survive. By night, he holds up in his house and listens as the vampires outside call out his name, taunting him to give up his hopeless crusade and just become a vampire like them.

It’s a beautiful story, and for the film, they threw it all out the window. Only the base concept remains - Robert Neville is the last man on Earth, and everyone else is a zombie...er, vampire...er, thing. And I apologize for my digression, but I must ask a question - why on Earth do we have three different adaptations of the same novel about vampires, and not one of these films contains a vampire? In The Last Man on Earth they’re zombies who are allergic to garlic (because THAT makes sense); in The Omega Man they’re freaks leftover from nuclear fallout; and now in I Am Legend they’re...I don’t even know what they are. If you’ve seen the 2005 British horror film The Descent, then imagine those creatures, but without the pointy ears. It really doesn’t make sense to me why vampires would be so hard to create on the screen, since they have so much symbolic value in the story - they suck out the lifeforce of other creatures, and while Neville is the only human left, he lost his humanity and his own lifeforce long ago. But I suppose in the final product we have here, what the creatures are doesn’t make much of a difference.

Which is why it’s a bit of a double-edged sword - they’re not vampires, which is a disappointment to fans of the book (like myself) - but what the movie got right is that the story is not just an action-horror with lots of shooting and blood and guts. It’s the story of a man overrun by loneliness, and the ways he tries to cope with day-to-day life in a world where nature has regained control. By day he hunts deer in the streets of New York, plays golf on an aircraft carrier, and has conversations with mannequins. It’s all done surprisingly well, and director Francis Lawrence showed good self control with these scenes, as he doesn’t fill them with narration or bombastic special effects - this is the world as it has become, and this is how one man is trying to keep living.

It really feels like they had something special here - something beyond the typical Hollywood fare. Will Smith gives a strong performance as the Legend himself, and his friendship with his dog, Sam, feels genuine. In fact, Sam could be argued to be the strongest character in the film. Loyal to a fault but naive, Sam gives added emotional weight to scenes where another human character would no doubt have hammed things up and tried to tug too hard at the heart strings. Simple shots such as Sam curiously eyeing a butterfly while Neville gathers ears of corn had a soft touch in them which made it seem believable that Neville would want to continue living, even if only for the friendship that Sam provides him.

Unfortunately, the film really falls apart about 2/3 of the way through, when the character of Anna appears. Claiming that she heard Neville’s radio broadcasts (which were begging for any survivors to come to New York City to be with him), she says that “God told her” there was a survivor camp in the mountains, and she would like him to accompany her there. But her character raises too many unanswered questions, and by the end of the film it seems kind of pointless for her to have been there in the first place. When you consider that Robert Neville has had trouble surviving - a man with military training and weapons, and who is in physical condition which would make the Spartans feel envious - then how could this young, sickeningly skinny woman armed with a pistol and escorting a young boy possibly have survived this long? It just doesn’t add up. And while her statements about “God’s messages” allude to a new message in the film about faith, it just doesn’t fit with the rest of the film’s substance regarding loneliness. While the rest of the film remains solid despite how untrue it is to the book, the character of Anna and the ending of the story would have benefitted greatly from the material found in Matheson’s story - especially considering the fact that the actual title, “I Am Legend”, completely loses its meaning without these events.

Of course it would be wrong of me not to mention the poor CGI used on the vampiric zombie demon beasts, but anything I could possibly say about it has been covered already by many others. The effects are, quite simply, unconvincing. They fail to evoke much fear of these creatures, especially in the case of the “Alpha Male”, whose monotonous stretchy-mouthed roaring into the camera almost becomes funny by the second or third time it’s used. It was completely unnecessary for these creatures to be created with computer graphics, especially in scenes when they are standing completely still, or simply lumbering around. As I mentioned before, they are almost identical to the beasts from The Descent - they’re basically bald people with sickly-pale flesh. If you ask me, make-up and animatronics will always be better than CGI, until they can create something which is truly photo-realistic.

It’s been a polarizing film, and not without reason. I Am Legend attempts to please fans of the book, fans of the recent zombie craze, and teenagers looking for the next big epic action movie all at once. But these audiences are so, so varied. Considering that the book was written in 1954, many of its greatest fans are surely well into middle-age, and aren’t too keen on seeing Will Smith romp through a bunch of zombies like a stylized music video. Luckily most of the movie isn’t like this, but the last half hour is enough to leave a bit of a sour taste in your mouth. It’s far better than a lot of the stuff being churned out by the Hollywood machine, and the scenes involving Will Smith and Sam are downright inspired and occasionally beautiful. Perhaps a “director’s cut” DVD will allow us to see the ending that was originally in store for us before the rushed re-shoots just a couple of months ago. As it is, it’s worth seeing for Will Smith’s best acting to date.

7.5 / 10