Francis
Lawrence’s I Am Legend is a Hollywood picture of the
rarest breed: one that uses its mega-budget and impressive
visual-effects to enhance its considerable brains, not to
destroy them. To great success, Lawrence mixes and mashes
directorial styles, crafting a film with the bleak intelligence
of George A. Romero, the climactic loudness of Michael Bay, and
the refined glossiness of Ron Howard. I Am Legend recalls
the great action films of the 1950s and the 1970s, in which
external and internal plot existed harmoniously and
contributed to works admirable for both the pure exhilaration
and thoughtful introspection that they evoked in the audience.
Still, as
clever and successful as Lawrence’s assembly of I Am Legend
is, his committed work strikes the viewer as secondary to that
of lead-actor Will Smith… and for good reason. The film is very
much a One Man Show, as its “last man on Earth”-premise would
suggest. Smith’s performance as protagonist Robert Neville is
something of a miracle for the star: he abandons all of the
conventions of his usual work in Hollywood (“Will-isms,” as he
called them when promoting last year’s The Pursuit of
Happyness). As good as we all knew Smith was at doing this
in dramatic roles (in fact, Ali and the aforementioned
Pursuit earned him Oscar nominations), it is a pleasant
surprise that he found the same ability to do so in the
more-typical I Am Legend. Smith’s combination of strong
gusto and sympathetic likeability as an actor fits Neville’s
character perfectly, and is much of the reason why the film
succeeds to the extent that it does.
As I Am
Legend’s heavy advertising campaign suggests, Neville
assumes himself to be the last living human survivor of a
massive plague on Earth, caused by a virus spread by a premature
cure for cancer. Neville lives in Manhattan, which, like the
rest of the world, is ruled by mobs of infected zombies that
come out at night. An ex-military scientist who worked on an
antidote for the virus before it became the devastating polemic
that it was, Neville quite literally conditions himself to
become a living version of Nietzsche’s Übermench. He does
pull-ups each morning to ensure that he is a muscular
human-machine. He lives with his dog Sam in a house in Greenwich
Village, which he has crafted into a fortress to protect him
against the flesh-hungry zombies during the night. He believes,
just as Nietzsche did, that God is dead, that no Supreme Being
would ever choose to inflict so much horror on the world as the
one that envelopes him.
As I Am
Legend progresses, Neville continues to work to find an
antidote for the virus out of the hope that he will be able to
save himself and/or any other possible living survivors. Said
survivors emerge, against all odds, at the call of a
radio-announcement that he plays back continuously. They are the
twentysomething Anna (Alice Braga) and the grammar-school-aged
Ethan (Charlie Tahan). Anna informs Neville that she has heard
other radio communications mentioning a survivors’ colony in New
Hampshire. Neville doubts this—he didn’t believe that any
survivors existed until coming into contact with the two—but she
vows to travel to the rumored safe-haven, with Neville or
without him.
I Am Legend
is based off of the same science-fiction novel by Richard
Matheson that spawned 1964’s The Last Man on Earth and
1971’s The Omega Man. I haven’t read the book, but I
would assume that screenwriters Mark Protosevich and Akiva
Goldsman have altered the tone of the source-material
significantly, given how contemporary the film feels. Despite
this change, they presumably do not alter Matheson’s central
themes, considering that the fear of scientific innovation going
overboard vocalized by the movie was just as much a concern for
people in the 1950s as it is for those living now. I was also
particularly impressed by the religious themes conveyed by
Protosevich and Goldsman’s adaptation; whether these were
transplanted from Matheson’s original work or created anew for
this version, I dunno. Either way, they come across as highly
thought-provoking and appreciably respectful of Christian
doctrine.
For me to write
a review of I Am Legend and not mention the movie’s
jaw-dropping visuals would be an unforgivable mistake. The
opening shots, which take place in a digitally-recreated version
of mid-town Manhattan, are particularly striking. The viewer is
instantly immersed in Neville’s world as they observe him zoom
past a Times Square overrun by wild flora and fauna in a sports
car. All of the billboards and skyscrapers are still intact, but
the asphalt on the ground is hardly visible. Some of the other
special-effects in the film aren’t as realistic as those in the
first scene, but they come across as equally-fitting for the
material. Many have critiqued the look of the zombies in I Am
Legend, but I thought that it was perfect, reminding the
viewer of those seen in the older apocalypse pictures that so
clearly inspired Lawrence’s vision for the movie.
As far as
action films are concerned this Holiday season, I Am Legend
is by far the cream of the crop. In terms of thoughtful dramas,
the film also ranks among the best. It represents a complete
package of cinematic glory, both riveting and enlightening for
nearly every one of its short 101 minutes. Surprising as this
fact may be given the usual ineptitude and derivativeness
displayed by the genre to which it belongs, I Am Legend
is unquestionably one of 2007’s most flat-out engrossing motion
pictures.
-Danny Baldwin,
Bucket Reviews
Review Published
on: 12.22.2007
Screened on:
12.15.2007 in IMAX at the Edwards Mira Mesa 18 in Mira Mesa, CA.
I Am Legend is rated PG-13 and
runs 100 minutes.
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