Wednesday, January 16, 2008

I am Legend review




Based on the Richard Matheson’s novel I am Legend, the Will Smith vehicle movie of the same name, is the story of virologist Dr Robert Neville (Will Smith) who, for a while at least, is the last man on earth.

The film picks up three years after a virus-based cure for cancer is found, a cure that subsequently leads to what would appear to be the apocalypse. Most of humanity is wiped off the face of the planet. A few are immune to the new super virus while many more are mutated into light-intolerant, highly aggressive beings that are almost stripped completely of their humanity.

This stripping away of humanity is the subject matter for much of the first half of I am Legend. Though the plight of Dr Neville (explored ably and with much charm by Mr Smith) and his canine companion Sam, a massive German Shepard, the writers (Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman) and director (Francis Lawrence) explore the psychological stress of isolation and the absolute need that we have for one another.

In one heart wrenching moment Dr Neville walks up to one of several mannequins he has posed in a DVD store and begs her to say hello to him. In another, whilst eating breakfast, a pre-recorded episode of the popular US morning program Today redundantly plays in the background. It’s an insightful scene, highlighting beautifully that when faced with complete isolation we crave anything, anything at all, that make us feel that it is still possible to connect, that there is more in this life than the subjective ‘I’.

For the first half I am Legend and Mr Smith’s performance is a tense study of the role of the relationships in our lives via the stripping away of those relationships altogether. This is helped along the way with intermittent flashbacks of Dr Neville’s last moments with his family before they were evacuated from Manhattan in the first days of the viral apocalypse.

The characters isolation also plays an extremely effective part in I am Legends other role as a science-fiction thriller. We get our first taste of the infected in this film when, after his watch’s alarm alerts him to approaching darkness, Dr Neville locks down his home for the night. With no compatriots to hunker around the campfire with, so to speak, we see a very frightened man armed with a rifle huddling with Sam in a feebly small bathtub. Outside the steel shutters, freed from the lethal sunlight, the infected begin an unearthly and chilling chorus of wailing and screeching.

The fear in I am Legend is almost palpable. In most films, when the hero walks into a dark building with the threat of a monster or psychopath ripping off several limbs lurking around every corner they look as if they were born for the task. Not in this film. Will Smith spends the entire time looking as if he is either on the verge of throwing up or having a heart attack from adrenalin overload. His performance here makes fear contagious: you can almost see it rippling throughout a theatre audience.

I am Legend also, somehow, manages to escape the triumphant tone that most thrillers or horror films rely on at the end to counteract the fear inspired over the course of the movie. There are no happy endings to be had here and it is because of this that we can’t really recommend this film for families. There are moments that let in despair to the exclusion of all else and while this is what gives I am Legend its visceral force and its tendency to linger long after the credit rolls, it is also what makes it potentially harrowing watching for the youngsters.

Sure enough I am Legend is a film for those that enjoy a bit of a fright but it is also an absolute joy for those of us who like a movie that questions and prods and is at its best when we replay its juiciest moments in our heads.

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