Film: I Am Legend

Directed by: Francis Lawrence

Written by: Richard Mathesen (novel); Akiva Goldsman, Mark Protosevich (screenplay)

Year: 2007

Language: English

Country: United States

Starring: Will Smith

Reviewed by: The Zombieslayer

Luck. Luck determines a lot in life. With any plague, there will be those who will have immunity to it, and those who don’t. The Native Americans who perished from smallpox were in better physical shape and had better diets than the Europeans who carried it over from the Old World. It’s just luck.

Wannabe pretentious critics can dismiss Will Smith’s Robert Neville character as the last survivor of an apocalyptic disease, who just happens to be a genius, a top scientist, and a military tough guy, but let’s just say it was luck and watch the movie. Or at least the movie hints that it was luck. I don’t see it as an implausible plot hole. There were other people immune to the virus. They just got eaten.

Francis Lawrence directs the 1954 novel I Am Legend, with a few modern day plot changes. This time around, a scientist “cures” cancer by using a genetically mutated virus. Good intentions. Bad results.

So Robert Neville and his dog Sam are the last survivors on Earth. By day, Neville and Sam are safe. By night, the monsters, half-zombie, half-vampire, come out with a super human fury, looking to feast on everything living.

Lawrence does a great job in portraying Neville’s loneliness. He talks to mannequins. He talks to Sam like Sam’s a human. And he watches a lot of t.v.

Neville’s also a classic “good guy.” Despite everything that has gone wrong, he still has hope that he can find a cure. One dimensional? Not at all. Smith does a fine job in fleshing out his Neville character.

Lawrence throws in his scares. I saw several people in the theater jump when Sam ran into a dark subway tunnel and Neville had to retrieve his only friend, knowing that they were there.

A great film? No. It doesn’t do enough to differentiate between the scores of other apocalyptic, other than knowing the virus was caused with good intentions. It did have an underlying point that we were too quick to play God. Or maybe I read that into it.

Smith does a fine job as Neville. Smith has matured into a decent actor, and once again, his son was casted as his son. But I think there was a slip in the film when they showed Neville had a daughter instead of a son. If anyone else caught that, by all means, let me know.

Is it worth seeing? Sure. But don’t expect to see something great because it’s just another Hollywood blockbuster that will generate big money, let you talk about it for a week, then forget it by the end of the year. 6 dead zombies for entertaining me for two hours.

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