I Am Legend

This could have been a really, really good movie, but alas, halfway through they choose to follow the route of your standard, humdrum, Hollywood action fare. Not that it is a bad or boring movie by any means, but it coulda been a contenda! Now it's just a measly 24 dollar deposit in your cinematic bank account.

The movie starts off with real promise, creating an empty and decaying NYC that is both fascinating and unsettling. Will Smith's performance is outstanding as you see him struggle with the effects of loneliness and isolation that result from being the "last man on earth." The director really creates a compelling and realistic environment, and I really felt like I was experiencing firsthand what it would be like to live in an abandoned and empty world.

It is the attention to little details that really shine in the beginning, setting the mood and context for his world in new and interesting ways: speeding down the empty streets with seemingly reckless abandon, darting over sidewalks and alleyways with no concerns for people or cars (there are none); interacting with his dog as if she were an actual person (seen it before, but taken to an extreme here); setting up daily and weekly routines to try to maintain some structure and order in a potentially meaningless existence; having taped newscasts and TV shows always playing in the background to simulate an outside world that no longer exists; displaying a total disregard for other people's property because the concepts of property and value are no longer relevant.

There are a lot of scenes like these that are really well-done and added a sense of believability beyond the average doomsday movie offering. One scene in particular is very telling, where he goes to the corner video store to "rent" a DVD. He has set up mannequins all around the store and interacts with them like real people, and we can really feel for him and his desperate longing for human contact. His little world he sets up in the video store also gives us insight into what a crushing effect it must have on his psyche to be the only human in existence--talk about an existential crisis! It also revealing because is causes us to begin to question his overall mental state.

This plot point, whether he is he crazy or not, is important because slowly through the first act we begin to get a sense that there are more menacing forces in play then we realize. This is nicely done through slow reveals, and truly creates an increasingly eerie and unsettling feeling as the movie goes on.

As we move into the second act, we start to get a better picture of all the forces at hand. Though a little unbelievable, I was willing to make the leap with them because they had done such a good job with the setup. His first encounter with the darkseekers is truly terrifying. I am not a big horror movie fan, so for me the suspense was so great that I was actually partially peeking through my hands at one point. To their credit, they don't resort to a lot of false climaxes to frighten you but rather keep the tension building until the payoff. It reminded me a bit of Alien--a classic example of creating lot's of suspense and showing very little.

Like Alien, I really felt it would have been more effective if they had kept the true nature of the darkseekers from us a little longer. Unfortunately, they not only choose to show us everything, but also introduce a stupid and unnecessary plot point of Will vs. the alpha male zombie. As soon as I saw this my heart sank, because I knew that a big explosion and gun-fueled confrontation was inevitable.

I felt betrayed by the director, and from that point on the movie slowly devolves into a standard shoot-em-up. I also felt that they abandoned the attention to detail that they had so carefully established at the beginning, just to set up the action. Big plot holes began to open up everywhere, more noticeable, perhaps, by the fact that I was no longer sold on the story. I found his interaction with the woman and child to be bizarre and inconsistent: Everyday he went down to the pier to wait for survivors to show up. He must have played out over and over in his head what he would say and do in the event that someone actually came. When he was so inarticulate and non-communicative (after the initial shock of seeing other survivors wore off), it just didn't ring true to me.

All in all it was a decent movie, but I think they really dropped the ball halfway through. It's like the director became enamored with the CGI zombies and decide he had to use them everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE!! The ending was hollow and disappointing and just didn't carry the emotional weight that it should have. The movie didn't really live up to it's title, I Am Legend. It's more like, I Am Your Typical Campfire Ghost Story.


I Am Legend (2007)
Starring: Will Smith
Directed by: Francis Lawrence

(5 out of 7 skinks)