Review: I Am Legend

It was lit­tle more than a decade ago that Will Smith danced his way atop a defeated alien space­craft and announced his box office allure. “Welcome to Earth!” burst forth from his mouth after an inter­stel­lar sock in the jaw, and imme­di­ately, it was clear that this was the man with which boffo bliss could be made. (in Independence Day for the uninitiated)In I Am Legend, we see a more mature, more finely attuned and more ripped actor than we have been watch­ing in the ensu­ing years. The film begins and ends with Smith, and I don’t mean tem­po­rally. Francis Lawrence’s film has much going for it while remain­ing wrought with prob­lems, but it is Mr. Smith’s impres­sive on-screen pres­ence that makes it even watch­able. In fact, any­one could have directed this film, and many were slated to before the expe­ri­enced music video direc­tor finally took the reins, as this was really a vehi­cle pushed heav­ily by Mr. Smith along the way. We can see why he wanted to star in this film: because he’s just that damn good.In the film, Smith plays Robert Neville, the last man on earth after a deadly virus destroys every­one, leav­ing around a half bil­lion infected and the few immune sur­vivors, like Mr. Neville, who the infected all ate. Gruesome yes? Well at least he’s got man’s best friend with him. The story opens three years into this night­mare, fol­low­ing our hero as he hunts, eats, enter­tains him­self, and makes it home before dark when the scaries make it out (they melt in the dark).Next to Mr. Smith’s phe­nom­e­nal per­for­mance, the rea­son to see this film is the sur­real post-apocalyptic imagery of New York City. There is a mix­ture of sat­is­fac­tion and fear see­ing what would become of the decay­ing Gotham three years out. The film­mak­ers’ rec­og­nize the jungle-like setup the city already pos­sesses: streets are the rivers that flow through moun­tain­ous build­ings. Once the laws that we have impressed upon this space have dis­ap­peared with human­ity, we get to see alter­na­tive pos­si­bil­i­ties for such a mon­u­men­tal man-made heap of metrop­o­lis. Through the magic of boat­loads of cash and some dig­i­tal trick­ery, the audi­ence is given a starkly accu­rate (there were a hand­ful of PhDs and MDs in the cred­its) vision of the end of Manhattan if the end came a hair sooner than the Mayans are telling us it will.Too bad that cash and trick­ery let us down in other areas of the film. Even the last man on earth has to have a foil, and in this case it is a char­ac­ter cred­ited as Alpha Male (played by Dash Mihok), the rough­est and tough­est of all the zombies/infected roam­ing the streets at night. You wouldn’t know he was a char­ac­ter if not for that nice credit at the end of the film, espe­cially not if you looked at him. I’ll gloss over the fact that the infected beings in this film look far too dig­i­tal to be feared or believed. They are the stuff of great video games and lame films, which is upset­ting, but the tech pit­fall on that account is not my main beef here. Rather, the con­cep­tion of these infected beings is utterly lame. We’ve seen iden­ti­cal crea­tures before in the Resident Evil series, and to much bet­ter effect in this film’s supe­rior influ­ence, 28 Days Later. On top of that, before a plan­e­tary virus turned them into the wild beasts they now are, they used to be peo­ple, yet there is no sem­blance of human­ity under all that CGI. Even though the film really is a show­case of Mr. Smith’s char­ac­ter, there is no good vil­lain for him to go up against. I will spi­ral out of con­trol com­plain­ing about these lame infected, so I’ll stop now.As with any sci-fi film, you can only take so much brain power to find logic in the story. There are holes, but the story moves along fast enough to let you for­get about them. The story falls apart over time, mainly because the infected aren’t given due process in the court of audi­ence opin­ion. I strongly believe that another six min­utes worth of under­stand­ing who they are bet­ter would fix every­thing. I’m gonna keep spoil­ers out of this, but basi­cally, when our hero, Robert Neville, has his reveal as all heroes do, it’s not really that sur­pris­ing, which sucks. The film keeps pulling you by the arm to be excited about the cli­max, but there’s no way to be because you see it com­ing well in advance. To make mat­ters worse, the film­mak­ers are rather ambiva­lent about any form of reli­gious over­tones through­out the film, appar­ently because they fig­ured they’d save all of it for act three. The last two reels devolve into M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs ter­ri­tory. Pay care­ful atten­tion to the film, or else the end wont make much sense. To be hon­est, it still doesn’t make sense.Seeing I Am Legend is absolutely a fun evening for all, at least if you have a less obnox­ious audi­ence than I had, but it really lacks any stay­ing power. It’s fas­ci­nat­ing that a B-movie like this has become one of the most antic­i­pated films of the year (it’s on the short list of bet­ter films of ’07). Kudos to all involved for trans­plant­ing the story from the unpop­u­lated west coast to Manhattan. It’s beau­ti­ful to behold this dead city, and makes for more legit­i­mate drama because, even when all the peo­ple are gone, this city takes on a life of it’s own (unlike the life­less west coast, seri­ously). However, this move also facil­i­tates a P.T. Barnum-esque men­tal­ity that Mr. Lawrence would have to over­come, that auds these days are just so damn impressed with the more havoc you can wreak dur­ing a shoot. Remember how jazzed every­one was when Cameron Crowe emp­tied out Times Square for Vanilla Sky? Imagine a whole film like that. Couple that base thrill with Will Smith’s one-man show­man­ship, and you’ve really got to eat your way out of the muck. For all it’s virtues, Mr. Lawrence never really found a way to make this film rise above all that, but I forsee some good work com­ing down the pike from him.As for Mr. Smith? He can slip into almost any role, and I encour­age him to find more new and excit­ing roles to fill. Can’t wait to see him next sum­mer in Peter Berg’s Hancock as an eter­nally hung over super hero. Here’s to you, Philly boy.