I Am Legend (2007)

Originally Written
Friday, January 4, 2008
 

What amazes me about Will Smith is no matter how many average to terrible films he stars in they all seem to be box office successes, even the Wild Wild West abomination ended up grossing over 100 million in the US alone. So it goes without saying Will Smith is box office gold no matter what he does, but I don't think Smith has done anything worthy of such success since Hitch.

I Am Legend is the film adaptation of the novel with the same title, and at least the 3rd motion picture release on this book. Will Smith plays Robert Neville, a military scientist who is one of the last remaining humans on Earth after a disease, created by man to cure cancer, ends up turning the majority of the human race into flesh eating zombies. Neville was among the few who appeared to be immune to the virus, while most of the others not infected were quickly killed by those infected. As far as Neville knows he's the only living survivor in New York City, if not the world. Neville's only companion is his German Shepard Sam, together they roam the deserted city hunting for food, attempting to make contact with anyone who might still be alive and continuing to attempt to find a cure that might reverse the effects of the virus. To do this Neville has to capture zombies to test his serum on them, this is a dangerous task when the victims of the virus have lost all human qualities and have turned into blood thirsty monsters. Luckily, Neville is safe during the daytime when he stays within the sun's light, which appears to have ill effects on the creatures, but once the sun goes down the zombies roam the city in search of food, and Neville is their prime target.

I Am Legend plays out a lot like Cast Away, minus the beautiful island scenery and better developed storyline. Most of the film doesn't contain a whole lot of dialog and spends a majority of time following Smith's character around as he drives the desolate city, or rents a movie at the local store. Like Cast Away, Smith's character also appears to get most of his social interaction by talking to inanimate objects such as manikins, which he has setup around town. While this is humorous for the first tens seconds it quickly grows old, the interaction doesn't have as strong an emotional or humorous impact in the film as the "character" of Wilson did in Cast Away. As for the zombies, their blatant CGI look deters from them really being taken too seriously, and the fact that they have superhuman powers being able run and jump as fast as animals doesn't quite make a whole lot of sense. Even more unbelievable and inconsistent is the fact the zombies appear to be highly intelligent and are able to set elaborate traps in attempt to capture Neville. For creatures that have lost all human reasoning and social abilities it's amazing that they seem to be able to create rather modern day and sophisticated traps.

Overall, I Am Legend is a decent science fiction thriller if you’re willing to overlook the blatant inconsistencies of the film, very little dialog, CGI zombies which look and act a lot like ripoffs from The Mummy, and the fact that most of the physical settings are also CGI, then you might find some enjoyment. Will Smith puts on a good performance as always, but as a whole I Am Legend is rather average in it's quality and execution. I've heard the earlier film adaptations of this book were quite better, so it might be worth checking out The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston and The Last Man On Earth starring Vincent Price.

7/10