I Am Legend

The premise of I Am Legend had great promises. It was a highly anticipated movie that settled for less than it was capable of. Will Smith's charisma and Francis Lawrence's ability to endeavour in make believe made this movie's potential out to be Castaway meets 28 Days Later. Unfortunately a sub-par script (the film was actually green -lit even before the script was written!) that wavered far too much from the novel it was supposed to based on and digital, rage-filled zombies halve in dramatic interest with every second that passes. Why does Hollywood insist on using CGI for special effects? It ruins movies; my only beef with The Dark Knight was Harvey Dent's face when he became Two-Face. It ruins the realism the authenticity and when its purpose it to raise the pleasures of voyeurism it does the opposite for me. CGI ruins movies when used on people. However, CGI is an incredible tool when used on inanimate objects, disasters and cityscapes. The way director Francis Lawrence manages to turn New York city into a run-down, immaculate ghost-town taken over by vegetation (plants were transported via trucks from Florida to dress up the city streets as if weeds had overtaken them) is an admirable feat! And he's smart enough to let Smith be Smith. But there's only so much you can do with CGI monsters that don't seem right for this kind of sci-fi scenario. Guerillmo Del Toro with Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth has proven that films can be so much better without CGI band-aids and taking the time and funding for old fashioned make-up. Coincidently Del Toro was Smith's first choice to direct the film, but turned it down to do Hellboy II. Del Toro could have saved this train wreck. How much scarier would the zombies have been if they were given a 28 Days Later makeover? Basically in the long run You're left gawping at a $100 million worth of a futuristic B-movie.

In anticipation for this review I read the novel by Richard Matheson, I want to tell you exactly where the movie failed its 1954 original counterpart. The book is based on a disease which creates vampires, who were once "legend" that turn out to be very much fact as the disease spreads and wipes out the entire human race except for Robert Neville. Neville boards up his home and goes out during the day to get supplies and food. Pretty much like the movie, right? No, in the movie they aren’t vampires at all, they are zombie-like humans infected by a disease. A disease which somehow (inexplicably) gives the super-human strength. As put by a film critic "Before the diseased-yet oddly superhuman villains start to appear en masse, I Am Legend works surprisingly well." Admittedly, there is a scene where the CGI zombies are huddled in a dark corner of a building pumping their backs back and forth while Neville tries to save his wandering dog without being seen. This scene was very chilling and pretty scary. Unfortunately one scene can't save $100 million.

The zombies start to evolve and get smarter, placing Neville in a trap. In the novel, the vampires evolve into day-walkers and send a girl to spy on Neville, pretending she's never been infected. Neville discovers her true self and after running away the day walkers capture Neville and perform an execution at their hideout, killing the last man alive. There is a complete role reversal in the end as Neville ironically becomes legend and the vampires become fact. The title makes sense to the novel in that vampires are folklore or legend, but in the movie it makes no sense as the creatures that end up killing Neville aren't legend but freaked-out science accidents. As stated in a very accurate film review "This new version of I Am Legend completely perverts the meaning of the title, losing the clever dark irony and turning it instead into something heroic rather than something tragic." The ending to the film is abrupt with a sudden solution to the earth's problems and in a single, selfless heroic act Neville passes the cure on to an escaping woman who takes it away to save the world. How many times have we seen a similar scenario? Typical Hollywood.

In the movie, Neville is faced at the end of a dock about to get eaten by the zombies, but of course (out of nowhere) in the nick of time comes a woman and her son who have somehow been surviving on a boat to save him. Hollywood is infected with fairy-tale endings and heroism that are so frequent that "Hollywood" films have become predictable to film viewers across the globe with their typical endings, ego driven protagonists and perverse twists on what they call "tragedies." As one critic has put it "the infantile prioritizing [in I Am Legend] that occurs when Hollywood wants to be inspirational, the hero's everyman crisis of religious faith is supposed to be as important to audience as his struggle to save humanity from distinction."

CONSENSUS:

Rotten Tomatoes give this move a 69% rating

Zoom In Analysis will DISAGREE with this rating and give it an emphatic 4 out of 10

There is a fine line between make-believe and make believable and unfortunately I Am Legend forces the viewer to flirt with the latter. Go for the thrills, for some nerve-gnawing suspense, for the wonderful production design and for the opportunity to spend some time with Will Smith (if you like him at all), but this is film is not the stuff of Legend.