Have you ever wondered what it's like to be alone? No one around to talk to, flirt with or shout at. We have all been in that type of situation-only we literally haven't been like Will Smith is in "I Am Legend."
Robert Nevelle (Smith) is living in the year 2012. A miracle cure for cancer three years earlier turned out to be a terrible virus that wiped out the majority of the human race but infected a minority population, turning them into aggressive, flesh-eating, night-bound animalistic shells of their former selves. Nevelle is the only one immune to the virus.
Using his knowledge and education behind this infection's origin, he experiments on animals to find a cure for the virus, using his blood as a base for the potential vaccine. During the day, with his faithful German Shepard Sam-who is shown in the flashbacks belonging to his young daughter-he hunts for the deer galloping about New York City's Times Square and gathers corn in what used to be Central Park. At night, his house goes to lockdown, shutting all manner of entry away from The Infected.
This is the third adaptation of author Richard Matheson's novel of the same title. Back in 1964, Vincent Price played a loose version of Neville with a different name in "The Last Man on Earth" and again in 1971 with Charlton Heston as the lead in "The Omega Man." The differences those two previous versions have with the book is that Price fought straight-up vampires and Heston battled an albino cannibal cult called The Family.
This new version is the most faithful to the original Matheson book and yet, we are introduced to why Matheson was such an inspiration to all those filmmakers and authors used his characters' qualities for their own work (George Romero's zombie films has Matheson's stamp all over, and Stephen King dedicated his novel "Cell" to both Romero and Matheson) because we know all the clichés to the zombie/vampire/cannibal genre. "Don't go down that dark alley into that dark room" or "Cover up your neck" are all things that have passed through our lips at one point while watching a horror film. But Matheson really didn't create a straight-up horror novel, and neither is this film.
"Legend" brings into great question the future of our Frankenstein-like doctors trying to be God and cure everything, right down to the common cold. Its thoughts are present and profound but this version is dumbed down some by the humor and playful nature of Smith.
He has sacrificed a lot of his previous goofiness from his past of "Independence Day," "Men in Black" and "Bad Boys," but Smith still injects some needed humor here that is dry and subtle yet overtly long and redundant. We do need a laugh now and again in this very dark and foreboding movie that is not for the light-hearted, Hollywood-ending seekers. Smith has to carry this film on his own, much like John Cusack had to earlier this year in "1408," but Smith straight-laced attitude here neither impresses nor lets down. He goes through his typical motions we've seen him do before but in a more dramatic fashion.
The strongest aspect to the film is the production design. The shots of an abandoned, overgrown Times Square and cut-in-half Manhattan Bridge (the President in 2009 issued an executive order to cut off New York from the rest of humanity with military jets streaking across the NYC skyline, punching their missiles into each bridge connecting to the mainland in more flashbacks) is both impressive and haunting. The creatures, however, needed some more CGI work to be done. I would have preferred actual people, much like the similar creatures of last year's "The Descent," but the special effects people rendered the work a lot better for the final product than they did for the trailers.
There is one major downfall of the movie: If there literally is no one else human around to produce, deliver, operate, etc. the functions of normal society, how does Neville get full electrical power, clean water and jars of pasta sauce that is still fresh after three years?
Still, "I Am Legend" is a wonderful-looking film with relevant concepts and a serious Will Smith, but okay special effects and the clichés of old give a promising yet lackluster, albeit lonely film.
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