So I just got back from watching I Am Legend in the theater with a few of my friends, and it saddens me to report the movie was a real letdown.
The most recent trailer did a bangup job of making me want to see the movie, (if you haven’t seen it already, here’s a link to the second trailer) and having just read the novel by Richard Matheson over the summer, I had high hopes that the movie would be faithful to the source material while updating and even improving upon parts of the original novel written way back in 1954, parts that were, you know, “not-so-legend.”
(…he’s got a dog.)
Now I firmly believe that adaptations are exactly that – adaptations of pre-existing works – and should be judged on their own merits, keeping in mind that the transition from one medium to another (in this case, from written novel to film) oftentimes necessitates changes. A recent example that comes to mind: the movie Stardust, based on the novel by author Neil Gaiman, doesn’t follow the source material exactly, nor should it. After all, what works in a novel may not translate well to film, and vice-versa.
(I remember browsing through the new releases at the bookstore about a week before the premiere of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith. I picked up a copy of the adaptation, opened up to a random page, and read something like “Anakin lunged at Obi-Wan with his lightsaber. Obi-Wan parried.” What works in a film…)
I Am Legend the film follows military virologist Robert Neville, played by Will Smith, the lone survivor of a terrible affliction that has wiped out most of the Earth’s human population. Although naturally immune to the man-made virus, Neville lives in constant fear of the survivors, now transformed into hideous, blood-thirsty, vampire-like creatures.
With his only living companion a trusty German Shepherd named Sam, Neville searches desperately for a cure to the terrible disease from his heavily-fortified apartment in New York City while attempting to keep his location a secret from the hordes of undead monsters stalking him.
Unfortunately, the film doesn’t quite live up to the compelling premise.
The movie opens with a news clip of an interview with Dr. Krippen (played by Emma Thompson, excellent as always) who claims to have discovered the cure for cancer. The cure is to be delivered by means of a deactivated virus, you know, so the cure can be spread to those who need it more rapidly. I found this bit pretty amusing really. It’s sort of like 1997’s Mimic where a pair of brilliant scientists decide to give their miracle cure the not-so-brilliant name “Judas.” Really, what were they thinking?
The following sequence takes place “3 Years Later.” We are introduced to Will Smith’s Robert Neville in the midst of a high-speed deer hunt behind the wheel of a brand new Mustang that’s supposed to be thrilling; this reviewer found it a bit tiresome. The shots of New York City’s empty streets are full of impressive details, but we’ve seen it all before, in the trailers for the film, and in the movie 28 Days Later, and a lot of the initial wow factor has been lost.
The first third of the film drags quite a bit as we cover ground already covered in the trailers, watching Neville’s daily routine – eating breakfast, working out, filling up gas, washing the dog. I Am Legend is less than 2 hours long but feels like 3.
The movie improves a bit and works best right before we are introduced to the baddies of I Am Legend. The lead-in to our first glimpse of the creatures is actually pretty suspenseful and mildly scary, albeit in a very Blair Witch-esque, “it’s really dark, and I can’t see a thing” sort of way.
In the novel, they are vampires, here they are kinda, sorta vampires, but not really. They have an aversion to sunlight which is deadly to them, a taste for human blood (one wonders what they feed upon day-in, day-out if Will Smith’s the only game in town), and a mode of transmission very similar to the classic movie vampire which is fine, really, except that you just don’t buy that a cancer-cure-turned-deadly-virus would transform your average Manhattanite into one of these rubber-faced, CGI creatures with the oddly distended jaws, and the superhuman leaping, and the climbing of impossible-to-climb surfaces, and the roaring.
(The affliction removes the victim’s ability to speak, and instead they roar, a bit like lions.)
Speaking of which, there are lions prowling about post-apocalyptic New York City, and as is to be expected, they are far better at hunting deer than good old Robert Neville. I’m guessing the lions escaped from the zoo.
Rather than use a blend of practical and visual effects as so many films do nowadays, (practical effects for close up shots or scenes taking place in broad daylight and visual effects for the impossible-to-shoot bits) the filmmakers opted to eschew practical effects entirely, and the results are decidedly unsatisfying. Sure, the look is consistent throughout (consistently bad), but these creatures aren’t scary, not in the slightest, and more importantly, they’re not at all believable. Referred to at one point in the film by the ridiculous, groan-inducing term “Dark Seekers,” these baddies seem to have been designed using visual cues from 1999’s The Mummy, and what’s worse, the effects look terribly outdated as though they were produced eight years ago.
Take a movie like 28 Days Later and its sequel. Live actors with proper training combined with well-done practical effects can be very convincing. The zombies, or “Infected” of 28 Days Later are frighteningly real.
To be fair, the creatures are actually fairly convincing in one action-packed sequence that takes place entirely at night, and with the sort of crazy leaping and climbing required by the script, a fair amount of CGI would have to have been used anyway. Still, even the Reapers of Blade 2 (see below) were better done.
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There are comparisons being drawn to Castaway, which makes sense on the surface given that Will Smith plays the lone survivor of a terrible catastrophe with nary a talking co-star in sight, but I Am Legend is no Castaway.
Will Smith is a good actor, and he does a decent job here with the material, but as written, Robert Neville just isn’t a very interesting character. We feel sorry for him, but that’s about it. It’s hard to take Will Smith seriously when the situation he’s plopped into just isn’t believable.
Which is not to say that Will Smith doesn’t do a fine job as Robert Neville; it’s the script that does him a disservice. There are bits of dialogue sprinkled throughout the film that are just plain bad no matter who delivers the lines. And I’m not sure who decided to make the film’s Robert Neville a Bob Marley fan. I don’t have any problems with Bob Marley’s music or any Bob fans out there, but I could have done without the scene near the end of the film in which Will Smith’s character explains exactly why Bob’s music means so much to him.
For an actor who first became widely known for his incredible and undeniable charm and wit, it’s surprising that the funny parts are the ones that fall flat. It doesn’t help that the scary parts aren’t very scary either. The only actor able to elicit an emotional response from the audience, is Abbey, the german shepherd who plays Robert Neville’s sole companion Sam.
Now I don’t know how many of you have actually read the novel by Richard Matheson, but the Robert Neville of the book spends a large part of his day rebuilding the fortifications around his home. The creatures know where he lives and come for him night after night, eternally hopeful (as only the eternally damned can be) that one day Neville’s defenses will fail, or that he’ll slip up, or crack under the pressure and give himself up.
And once he’s done fixing the damage the vampires have caused, Neville goes out and hunts them down, one-by-one. And he searches for a cure as well. He’s a regular post-apocalyptic Renaissance Man.
The Robert Neville of the film lives in fear, destroying the scent trail leading to his home with bleach, and spends his nights cowering in his bathtub with his trusty canine companion for comfort. While it’s a bit of a departure from the novel, I like that Will Smith’s Robert Neville is afraid of the creatures and afraid of dying, but I was expecting him to be a bit more pro-active when it comes to preserving his own life, perhaps taking out a few more of the baddies along the way.
Without giving anything away, the ending feels very rushed, and reminded me uncomfortably of M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs. There are theological questions that are introduced a bit too late in the game, and the climactic action sequence is pretty ho-hum. Stuff blows up, shots are fired, and Will Smith gets tossed around and slammed into walls – nothing new here, nothing inspired or original, and when the end does come around, the audience is left wondering if that’s all there is.
(The filmmakers attempt to explain the film’s somewhat mystifying title in the end, but the explanation, like the film, is utterly unsatisfactory; the title only really makes sense if you’ve read the novel.)
I Am Legend gets a 3 from me – it’s worth a rental, but truthfully, you’d be better off reading the book.
Oh, well, it could’ve been a whole heck of a lot worse. If you don’t believe me, check out this trailer for I Am Omega, starring Mark Dacascos.
Tags: Abbey German Shepherd, Dark Seekers, I Am Legend, I Am Legend Movie Review, I Am Legend Review, I Am Omega, Robert Neville, Will Smith
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