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I Know You Are, But What Am I?
By bukkhead | January 21, 2008
FILM REVIEW: ‘I AM LEGEND’
Written by Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman
Directed by Francis Lawrence
Rated PG-13
101 mins.
What does this say about a movie: I thought I wrote this review already. What I actually did was write a few sentences about it on my main blog. This is what I wrote: “[Choosing a movie for that night:] Sweeny Todd was first on our list, but none of the times or locations were convenient to us. So we opted for I Am Legend, which turned out to be better than I thought. The title has nothing to do with the movie, and Will Smith is a much better actor than the script deserves. But there was some good scare moments, and it was not a waste of time.”
That pretty much sums it up. I am Legend was not a movie I was anticipating greatly. I was never a fan of The Omega Man, did not need to see this new vision of it. On the other hand, I was not opposed to seeing it, not fearful that it would be bad or poorly done. And it was pretty good, all things considered. There’s movies you go to because you have a vested interest in them. There’s films you attend at someone else’s behest. There’s cinema strictly for wasting a hundred minutes of your life. Then there’s movies like this, call them factory-made: you want to be entertained, you are entertained, and that’s all.
The story, if you don’t know, is about Robert Neville, the last man alive in New York. The last “normal” man. A virus created to cure cancer has killed 99 percent of the Earth’s population, and of the surviving 1 percent, 99 percent of them turned into blood thirsty, light-fearing animals. For some reason, Robert, one of the leaders of the original project, and a soldier to boot is one of the .0001 people doubly immune. He spends his days hunting game and gathering leftovers in empty apartments, his evenings trying to find a cure, to reverse they effect of the virus in the monsters still alive.
So what does the title have to do with this? I have no idea. Is it because He’s the last man alive? Because he finds the cure? Because he sacrifices himself to save others? Cause he goes crazy? Cause he clears the streets and drives hotrods after herds of deer? No clue. I guess it’s just to sound better than The Omega Man.
Yes, Will Smith is a better actor than this film deserves. Which is not to say he’s wasted here. He does a good job of showing the struggle between despair and hope, the insanity of maintaining a semblance of how life used to be against the terrifying backdrop of a literal; ghost town. Few actors, I feel, could work with mannequins and get you inside their heads enough to see how they pretend those mannequins are actually alive.
And like I said, there’s some good scare moments, quality cinema to discuss over an after-film plate of fries. Or to write about on your blog.
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