Corporate Line: In I AM LEGEND, Will Smith joins the ranks of Vincent Price (in 1964’s THE LAST MAN ON EARTH) and Charlton Heston (in 1971’s OMEGA MAN) as the star of an adaptation of Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel of the same name. Often surprising in its focus on loneliness and loss, this thoughtful, eerie, and restrained sci-fi horror film provides a parade of startling visuals, but never allows special effects to overcome the human element. Smith, in a strong performance very different from his usual persona, is Robert Neville, the lone survivor in a New York City where streets are overgrown and deer gambol among deserted automobiles. Following an epidemic, the Earth’s population has been turned into an army of nocturnal zombies. Immune to the virus, military scientist Neville searches for a cure in his Washington Square townhouse. Haunted by visions of his family leaving quarantined Manhattan two years prior, he drives through the city with his German Shepherd, Sam, by day and barricades his home from the monsters nightly. But when Anna (Alice Braga)–another immune stranger-finds him, they will have to fight the onslaught twice as hard. Akiva Goldsman and Mark Protosevich’s emotionally-charged script showcases the charisma of Smith, who commands the screen alone for most of the picture (aside Abbey, a talented German Shepherd). Director Francis Lawrence (CONSTANTINE) uses music minimally, wisely allowing the eerie cityscapes to remain mostly silent. The set pieces, including an overgrown, deserted Times Square and a lion hunting a deer in the Flatrion District, are goosebump-inducing moments of stark beauty. Though some may question the rendering of the monsters in CGI instead of using actors, it does allow them to be frighteningly acrobatic. A chilling and effective adaptation of a horror classic, I AM LEGEND is also a thought-provoking piece of Hollywood filmmaking.
The review: There has been almost no move that I’ve wanted to like more than I Am Legend. A blockbuster horror flick with a big name Hollywood actor–everything a guy could want in a movie.
And then the movie starts.
And quickly its obvious that this movie is bound for a place in the crap heap of horror movies. The build up is great. Everything is exciting and then, you see the monsters. The zombies aren’t out of a Romero movie–instead they come straight from a video game. Not only are they CGI’d to the hilt, but they movie like some sort of super-monster. They can climb walls, leap incredible heights, and for some reason a virus has made them look like steroid freaks.
Even as the zombies get smarter it doesn’t matter–you’ll already have checked out and stopped caring. Anyone who has watched Land of the Dead actually wanted the zombies to get in there and kick butt–here it just doesn’t matter at all. I don’t care who or how this is supposed to be a deep movie–its not. Its as brain dead as the zombies. It’s a bad thing when the best parts of the movie ends as soon as the villain shows up. Skip this and rent Omega Man.
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