I Am Legend: Review

If you have not seen the movie “ I Am Legend” yet, do not read any further if you don’t want to see any spoilers.

Long before George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” or any other movies about flesh eating zombies, there was a novel written by Richard Matheson from the 50’s that spawned a whole genre of zombie and flesh eating horror. Authors such as Stephen King and such were inspired by Matheson.

Two other movies were made based on his novel: 1964’s “The Last Man on Earth”, played by Vincent Price and 1971’s “The Omega Man” starring Charlton Heston.

In 2007’s “I am Legend” the latest character is acted by Will Smith. He gives a stellar performance as Robert Neville, who survives the nuclear outbreak of an airborne virus that kills off the earth’s population.

This latest film version takes place in 2012. After the President orders the city of New York to be quarantined, back in 2009 he sends his wife and daughter with military to flee the city. . After losing his family, ironically not from the virus, but a terrible helicopter accident fleeing the city. Neville stayed behind to help find the cure. Alongside him is his loyal companion German Shepherd named Sam (short for Samantha). Throughout the movie, he hunts these creatures during the day, capturing them one by one to experiment vaccines he concocted to find a cure.

There are some great special effect shots of NYC that looks like an abandoned jungle, cars laying waste and grass growing over the roads. There is even a cornfield growing in Central Park! These shots make you feel like New York City had been abandoned. Throughout the movie, he hunts these creatures during the day, capturing them one by one to experiment vaccines he concocted to find a cure. When he captures a creature, he takes it back to his downstairs lab to inject them with the latest strain to test them out. There are hundreds of profile and head shots plastered to his wall of his failed experiments.

After his trusted and loyal companion chases a deer they were hunting into an abandoned dark building, Neville cautiously goes after her. He is confronted by a horde of zombies. He and Sam are chased through the building where he runs towards a light, crashing through the window a few stories above the street. The creature is writhing in pain from the sunlight, and dies on the street. After scolding his dog, he returns home just before dusk, locks up all the windows and doors, and sleeps with Sam with his rifle alongside him. He leaves his home just after day break, just to repeat the whole process over again.

Throughout the movie, he talks to mannequins that he strategically placed throughout the city in the places that he frequents the most. This sounds crazy to most of us, but you need to remember that he is the only lone human survivor. Solitaire and loneliness does strange things to any normal human being. If you have seen “Cast Away” with Tom Hanks, you know what I am talking about when he befriends a volleyball named Wilson.

One day, he is driving through the city where he spots a mannequin standing in the middle of the street. He knows that he didn’t place it there. He gets out of his car and starts yelling to the mannequin “how did you get here!” then shoots the mannequin and shoots his gun into the air into some of the tall buildings. He steps into a trap that lifts him upside down. He hangs there all day knocked out from a blow to his head. Samantha is barking at him and trying to get his attention the whole time. He comes to just as the sun is setting. He pulls out his knife and cuts himself free, and accidentally jabs the knife into his leg as he hits the ground. He is struggling to move to get back to his car when he hears barking, not from his dog, but elsewhere. Emerging from the shadows is a zombie, who is obviously the leader bent on revenge for Neville capturing his girlfriend or wife. He is holding 3 infected dogs. He lets them go and they run after Sam and Robert, but stop where the sliver of sunlight still spills across the street. As soon as the light fades, they chase after the duo. Robert manages to kill 2 of the 3 dogs with his pistol he grabbed from the vehicle, while Sam fights for her life against the third infected dog. It is too late since Sam gets infected and dies later that evening at home.

Alone and frustrated, Robert Neville is bent on revenge. That same night, he drives out to the same spot where he was trapped. He lures the creatures out. As soon as the pack is running towards him, he turns the lights on his vehicle and plows them over. Soon enough though, the pack is too much for him to bear. They soon overtake his SUV and he is nearly killed when a bright light turns on and the creatures scatter.

He loses consciousness and later awakens inside his home with the smell of bacon and eggs wafting through the air. He grabs his gun and slowly makes his way into the kitchen. There he finds a woman and her son. Anna and Ethan turn out to be other survivors of the outbreak that heard his broadcast on the radio that he would be at the South Pier everyday at noon to shelter and feed any other survivors. They are on their way to a survivor camp in Vermont that they heard about. Robert and Anna argue about this because he doesn’t believe there are anymore survivors. While they are arguing, he hears noises outside. Soon, they realize that they were followed to his home by the zombies. Robert, Anna and Ethan fight for their lives in the final standoff of the zombies. The end of the film is really intense where they find themselves locked in the downstairs lab behind a bulletproof glass door with the creature he was testing laying on the gurney. To his surprise he sees her almost human again and realizes that he found the cure. Drawing blood from himself, he makes Anna and Ethan get into the fireplace and locks them in but giving her his sample before doing so. All the while, the leader of this horde is crashing into the glass plated door and slowly breaking it away. Robert grabs his grenade and as the last bit of glass door breaks away, he pulls the clip from the grenade and runs out into the room where there are several dozen other creatures and blows himself up, taking out the whole lot of them.

The final 2 minutes of the film shows Anna and Ethan drive up to a gate. They walk up to it and the gate is opened by soldiers. Beyond the gate you see a small city with other normal humans. The shot pans out as she hands the cure to one of the soldiers and you see the city and fence all around the city. This is where the community of survivors went to hopefully repopulate the planet by using the cure.

In my opinion, this was a really good film. Although the special effects in some parts could have used some work, overall they did a good job making NYC look abandoned, especially for the city that never sleeps. I give this movie an A grading and would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes this genre of movie.

Will Smith does a great job, as he usually does in his films, which makes him an A list celeb. His real daughter from Jada Smith, plays, ironically, his daughter in the movie although not a very big part, but nevertheless a great part for her.

What is really interesting about this film, is the fact that no more than a handful of people played major parts in the movie, but they used casts of hundreds of extras for short 2 or 3 second shots.

If you get the chance to see this movie, it is best to see on the big screen. But it could be watched when it comes out on video, especially on a home theater with surround sound.