Apparently, Will Smith aspires to be the biggest male lead in Hollywood, and I am Legend is essentially a Will Smith star vehicle. It’s a very effective star vehicle, too - he curbs his natural cockiness and portrays ‘the last man on earth’ and his steady mental disintegration with consummate skill. Unusually for Hollywood, it has a notably dark ending, and Smith’s several anti-religion rants (coupled with a dose of scientific hubris - he’s clearly used to finding solutions, and quickly) makes the film almost nihilistic. Like Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, I am Legend makes a point of going nowhere, fast.
Smith is a military virologist who - for some inexplicable reason - is immune to a virus that has killed 90% of the world’s population and rendered most of the remainder zombie-like, albeit with greater aggression and intelligence than the usual run of zombies. In themselves, the zombies are not particularly scary - at least, I didn’t find them scary, although this is partly to do with poor CGI. It’s amazing how fake something looks when it doesn’t cast a shadow. Instead, the distress factor comes from Smith’s loneliness. Unlike Tom Hanks in Cast Away, Smith at least has a dog for company (shortly before last night’s preview, Smith maintained the dog - a German Shepherd named Samantha - stole most of his scenes). However - perhaps due to the actions of animal rights movements - we have become used to Hollywood animals surviving in improbable circumstances (think Independence Day’s Golden Labrador). When I am Legend sweeps this cinematic trope aside, the film enters a very bleak place indeed.
The best effects are achieved the old-fashioned way. Director Francis Lawrence somehow contrived to empty New York blocks at a time, and as with Danny Boyle’s abandoned London in 28 Days Later, seeing Times Square with weeds sprouting through the pavement and watching Smith practising his golf swing off the deck of the USS Intrepid is genuinely eerie. There is very little exposition, and the few flashbacks combine to make Smith’s hubris and nihilism both explicable and strangely reasonable.
The conclusion is at least partly Hollywoodized, complete with a mass of explosions and special effects that detract from the film’s overall effect. This softening is only partial, however, and it still has a sting in its tail that sets it well above cheesy-finale efforts like War of the Worlds.
Recommended, but be prepared for some distress, especially if you’re an animal lover.
Disclosure: I received a free preview ticket but no financial reward for this review
53 Comments
Watched the shorts. How the hell do they empty out NYC streets? Couldn’t figure that out. I wait till it’s on DVD.
Apparently by getting permits block by block. Lawrence didn’t want to create the effect with CGI. I don’t think the film will be released in Australia until Boxing Day (same as the UK), so you’ll be waiting a while for the DVD.
Yeah this movie looks pretty good, I really love end of the world and dystopian type stories a lot, can’t wait for this to come out, thanks for the review, SL
Also, they are finally making Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged into a movie, which I am wondering how closely the socialists in Hollywood will be able to stick to its true message, lol.
Apparently Angelina Jolie is signed on for the lead, and she was quoted as being a ‘huge fan of Rand’s’. — LOL, somehow I really doubt that, haha.
Hasn’t this movie been already made? Omega Man?
Brendan, I think it’s the third movie version.
FF is right. All three are based on an sf novel that came out in the 50s, although the movies change the ending to varying degrees.
will smith is one actor who really annoys me….for some reason i just cant stand him.
Brendan - yes, The Omega Man was also based on ‘I Am Legend’. In the book the central character is the the last man on earth who has not turned into a vampire.
Gosh, thanks for the spoiler. I had read a couple of reviews of this movie before I read yours and was looking forward to seeing it.
Every other reviewer managed to express what the movie was about without mentioning the fact that the dog gets killed.
Do you know why they didn’t mention that the dog got killed? Because it is really goddamn annoying to know about a key plot twist before you see the movie.
What makes you think your insights into the film are so valuable that it is worth spoiling the experience for everyone else who goes to see it?
Back to movie reviewer school for you.
Seriously, have you ever read a single movie review before? Were you trying to write an actual review or were you just trying to be a smarty-pants letting everyone know about your free ticket?
Thanks SL. thanks for getting tillman upset. please updatre if there is anything else in the plot we don’t know….. For tillman’s sake.
Not necessary, JC. Her work is done. You can be sure that when I see the movie I will be thinking of this review and its author with extreme annoyance.
I think the second one starred CHarlton Heston
Once you’ve settled down, Tillman, you’ll find that there’s a great deal I’ve left out when you see the film. Including, believe it or not, about the dog.
Now stop hyperventilating.
For clarification Tillman, the free ticket was mine. Skeptic was there as my guest.
As a disabled person just as reliant on my Assistance Dog as Neville was on ‘Sam’, I found what happens to the dog to be distressing in the extreme … and I’m not what I’d consider a ’soft touch’. I think the strength of my reaction may have been why Skeptic included the warning.
ffs it’s a movie. get over it.
Yes, and having that reaction is part of the cinematic experience as intended by the director… it’s supposed to be “enjoyed” in the cinema, and it’s diminished when you know beforehand what’s going to happen.
There’s a skill to writing a movie review that suggests the themes of the movie without actually giving away what occurs.
Tillman, shut up ’til you’ve seen the movie and know what you’re talking about - there’s a good boy…
You can be sure that when I see the movie I will be thinking of this review and its author with extreme annoyance.
Good. That will entice me to see the movie on pirate web and tell you exactly what happens - word for word, Tillman Word for word. Give me till tomorrow. That ought to make you violently annoyed.
JC you don’t even need pirate web. all you need is wikipedia.
# Re Angelina Jolie as a fan of Rand, does she have any idea of the way Rand’s female characters get treated behind closed doors?
Oh… and excellent review, SL. Sorry I forgot to mention that.
Thanks Jase;
Here, tillman. Here’s the book plot, which i read somwhere is pretty close to the movie.
It’s just not about the dog you idiot. It’s not just about the dog getting killed. that’s just a minor subplot. In other words SL kept the rest of the story well hidden….. Until now of course. So enjoy your cinematic experience, you argumentative clown.
The story takes place over a period of time between 1976 and 1978 in Southern California. The novel opens with the monotony and horror of the daily life of the protagonist, Robert Neville. Neville is apparently the only survivor of an apocalypse caused by a pandemic of bacteria, the symptoms of which are very similar to vampirism. Every day he makes repairs to his house, boarding up windows, stringing and hanging garlic, disposing of vampires’ corpses on his lawn and going out to gather any additional supplies needed for hunting and killing more vampires.
Neville’s psychological disposition is a significant element in the novel, and his struggles with despair imbue the character with intensity and gravitas. The author emphasizes that he is an ordinary, flawed man trying to deal with an extraordinary catastrophe. It also explores the loneliness of being by himself, excitement and hope of finding others, and disappointment over still finding himself alone. During the evenings, Neville drinks whiskey and listens to records. The records referenced by name sometimes reflect what is happening in the story, while at other times they simply reflect Neville’s mood.
Much of the story is devoted to Neville’s struggles to understand the plague that has infected everyone around him, and the novel details the progress of his discoveries. Instead of asking the reader to accept a supernatural explanation for vampire phenomena, the author strives to offer scientific basis for such symptoms as aversion to garlic, craving of fresh blood, and resistance to bullets but vulnerability to stakes and sunlight. The aversion to mirrors and crosses is classified as psychological, with a Jewish vampire displaying no aversion to crosses, but a strong aversion to the Torah. This represents one of the first attempts in popular culture to explain vampirism scientifically, something that has become more common in vampire stories since.[citation needed] Neville hypothesizes that he is immune to the bacteria because he was bitten by a vampire bat when he was stationed in Panama.
One day, a dog appears in the neighborhood. Neville spends weeks trying to win its trust and domesticate it. He eventually traps the terrified dog and wins it over, but it dies from the vampire infection a week later.
As the story progresses, it is revealed that some infected people have discovered a means to hold the disease at bay. However, the “still living†people appear no different from the true vampire during the day while both are immobilized in sleep. Thus, along with the vampires, Neville kills the still living people. He becomes a source of terror to the still living, since he can go around in daylight (which they can only do for a short length of time) and kill them while they sleep.
The still living send a girl named Ruth to spy on Neville, and they cleverly replicate Neville’s relationship to the dog. Ruth pretends to be terrified of Neville at first sight, and rather than spend weeks trying to win her over, he attacks her and drags her back to his house. Though Neville is suspicious of her true nature and much of their interaction focuses on Neville’s internal struggle between his deep seated paranoia and his hope, it is clear by his seizure of Ruth that the scales have tipped in favor of the irrational. Eventually Neville performs a blood test on her, revealing her true nature to him before she knocks him out. Ruth leaves a note telling him about the group of people like her, explaining that she was sent to spy and how monstrous he appears to them. Months later, the still living people attack, shooting Neville but taking him alive so that he can be executed in front of everyone in the new society.
Before he can be executed, Ruth provides him with an envelope of pills. Neville takes the pills so he will feel no pain when the still living execute him. He finally realizes why the new society of the living infected regards him as a monster: just as vampires were regarded as legendary monsters that preyed on the vulnerable humans in their beds, Neville has become a mythical figure that kills both vampires and the infected living while they are sleeping. He becomes a legend as the vampires once were, hence the title.
Wrong movie, JC. But thanks for trying.
Typical. There’s three Chuck Heston Sci-fi Apocalypsos of the 70s and Hollywood’s remade the two it should’ve left alone and left alone the the one it should’ve remade. I used to wag school when these movies were on at mid-day. Rosalind Cash mm mm mmm. No good pictures sorry.
Hollywood’s plumb outta content. Anyone remember the last time they made a flick that wasn’t a rehash of something?
Soylent Green is people.
Hope I didn’t spoil anything.
you did it you really did it.
Damn you damn you all to hell
Speaking of spoilers, I’m a huge fan of Threadless (got more than a dozen of their shirts), and I like this one but wouldn’t want to do that to people.
MULTIPLE SPOILER ALERT if you click this link
http://www.threadless.com/product/844/Spoilt#top
I thought Omega Man was not bad for a Heston vehicle, not the same sought of gravitas as Planet of the Apes mind. After reading JC’s plot synopsis, The Simpsons did a pretty good version as well with Homer as the protaginist (Homega man) in a Treehouse of Horror episode many years ago.
Spoiler aside (okay, not quite aside - it is pretty standard practice to put up a SPOILER ALERT and it wouldn’t kill anyone to amend the post accordingly [unless you're so fucking proud you can't bear to seen to be backing down]) the idea that animals in films not dying is due to the animal rights lobby is patently absurd.
Bad guys die, good guys live. Animals (if they get enough screen time to be considered a character) are invariably either bad guys, and hence die near the end, or they are good guys integral to the plot and hence live.
What “cheesey-finale effort” did “War of the Worlds” have? The ending is true to the original Wells novel, just as the intro references the famous Welles radio version. If modern audiences don’t realise this, it’s hardly Spielberg’s fault. Pop culture references aside, I thought his remake was genius, one of the best movies of the past decade.
As for Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”, that will never get made, so we’ll never know.
The entire of Tom Cruise’s family surviving, Daniel. In a remarkably clean street with its glass frontages still intact. I am, as you should have guessed, reasonably familiar with Wells’ oeuvre.
FDB seems to have had his customary morning manners by-pass.
Interesting that matters of taste produce such invective, too. Many people (and this flaw seems to be worse on the progressive side of politics) flaunt their taste not because of the cultural artefact’s inherent ‘quality’, but because they wish to be seen as somehow better than the hoi polloi.
It’s this that leads to ‘my favourite band is more obscure than your favourite band’ piss up the wall contests, and the sort of comfortable mockery that is directed, say, at country music.
If I like something, it’s because I like it, not for point-scoring purposes.
My guess is Skepticlawyer is referring to the reunion-of-family bit in Boston that the War of the Worlds movie concludes with. It’s a reworking of the Welles plot, and cheesy, I guess, in that it includes a soft-family theme that Welles never had and obviously didn’t want in his original novel (not the death of the aliens by bacteria).
In the end the film worked for me, since Spielberg makes it pretty clear that the reason all the protagonists survived in the movie was pretty much luck. I see War of the Worlds, and the previous two Spielberg efforts (Minority Report and AI) as a return form and to classic mythical/SF themes.
Omega Man is a great film, and I look forward very much to seeing ‘I Am Legend.’
It’ll be interesting to see how this film treats loneliness. It’s a trope commonly used - and even more commonly misused - in science fiction, where the authors are apt to plonk small groups of characters down in vast alien landscapes and not worry at all about their mind. The cliche in sf has always been that of the ‘can-do guy’, who’s doing things like hastily improvising a raft to survive on the acid seas of Titanius V, performing dentistry on man-eating cobras, (etc etc) in the most bizarre circumstances. (Though the best SF certaily doesn’t treat the character or pyschology of its protagonists so blithely.)
Having had time to digest Tim, I was actually a little disappointed with that aspect of the film. The visual impact of an empty New York was so stunning that (possibly due to weakness of script) I felt the actual performance by Smith was a bit lacking. Flashbacks are useful to explain how the character got to this point but I expected a bit more development during the movie.
I think the original film version had the guy who did the spoken-word bit at the end of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’?
Vincent Price?
By the way IMDB says Atlas Shrugged is set for a 2008 release.
It also only just hit me this is where the James Boag beer ads came from. I am very slow, sometimes.
Who is
John GaltJames Boag?Bloody link tag didn’t work
SL:
>The entire of Tom Cruise’s family surviving, Daniel. In a remarkably clean street with its glass frontages still intact.
Oh, ok. I didn’t think it was particularly incredible - not given the basically incredible premise.
>Many people (and this flaw seems to be worse on the progressive side of politics) flaunt their taste not because of the cultural artefact’s inherent ‘quality’, but because they wish to be seen as somehow better than the hoi polloi…If I like something, it’s because I like it, not for point-scoring purposes.
The situation is complex. It’s the Left my-indie-band’s-more-obsure types that generally deride Spielberg for being “cheesey” and “Hollywood.” This is because he’s by and large an imaginative optimistic, and emotional filmmaker, and this is apparently uncool. The Right, on the other hand have most recently derided him as a “traitor.” This is because he declines to portray things like war, power, and revenge in a suitably childish and appeasing way. This is also apparently uncool.
TimT:
>I see War of the Worlds, and the previous two Spielberg efforts (Minority Report and AI) as a return to form and to classic mythical/SF themes.
TimT you are clearly a man of taste and distinction. “Minority Report” is certainly the only Hollywood hit I can think of that brings the self-prediction problem so acutely to bear as an argument against determinism - other than perhaps “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure…;-) And “A.I.” was derided as a great big chocolate-covered triple cheeseburger when it came out, mainly because these days everyone is trained to expect an empty, cynical spectacle every Christmas and Spielberg declined to provide it. But I predict it will be regarded as a classic in 10 years from now.
I think although AI marked a return to form, it was something of a failure cinematically. It was buggered up by confusion over authorship, a half-worked out plot, and a confused script - partly because although it was Kubrick’s original intention to bring the story to the screen, he never got it done before he died: indeed, he was only in the early stages of negotiations with Brian Aldiss, who wrote the original short story. (Kubrick was following his approach of tossing ideas around with the author that would later settle down into a complete script).
Spielberg picked up this project where Kubrick left off, but negotiations with Aldiss dropped off. Indeed, I don’t think he was even invited to the film premiere.
WOTW and Minority Report both have a simplicity and unity of purpose that AI lacks, and it’s obvious why.
“Science fiction is a whore, prostituting itself with discomfort, disgust, and contrary to its dreams and hopes.”
– StanisÅ‚aw Lem
RE Kubrick and AI
AI was the first movie I ever followed thru the trade papers. When Kubrick died I was really disappointed that he was never going to make it. Considering the way he developed the theme in 2001 he might’ve done extraordinary things. (Of course he would. He always did.)
I think Spielberg’s version is this mishmash of his sensibility and Kubrick’s and it doesn’t work. The cheesy robot group hug thing at the end is vomit-worthy. Speilberg’s a group-hug junkie. He’s the only guy in the world who could make a movie about the holocuast that ends in a group hug. He’s a great director but his films are shallow quite a lot of the time which is why so many don’t last.
That said if Kubrick had made his holocaust picture Aryan Papers I reckon it would’ve upped the suicide rate.
I agree with Timothy. I’d like to see some real sci-fi, old school stuff that explores the future with more in mind than laser cowboys. Battlestar Galactica is the only thing that’s really worthy to come out recently.
Adrien:
>The cheesy robot group hug thing at the end is vomit-worthy.
Yes everyone seems to hate the ending…but it’s the best bit. It’s not a vomitous group hug at all. It reminds me of the last play in Shaw’s “Back to Methuselah”, which is called As Far As Thought Can Reach and is set in AD 31920. It’s that kind of ambitious. Originally it seems Kubrick planned the ending to make a rather yawnsome philosophical point about the ultimate futility of belief; fortunately Spielberg reanimated it to brilliantly illuminate the film’s central theme the insane rarity of human emotional experience in an otherwise vast, empty, freezing, mechanical universe; a impossible rarity that we nonetheless take for granted every day. Much better.
Must admit I enjoyed Minority Report a great deal, and I also like Battlestar Galactica. Both have some really intelligent ideas in there… and the temptation to use what appears to be a nice ‘easy’ solution to a complex problem is really well-handled in Minority Report.
it seems Kubrick planned the ending to make a rather yawnsome philosophical point about the ultimate futility of belief
Sounds very very unlikely. Kubrick never served cheese.
I think Kubrick’s general idea was to present AI as a fairytale, which is a reason why he had his compatriot Spielberg in mind for the project - Spielberg’s optimistic style and philosophy being more apparently in synch with this conception than Kubrick’s altogether more nihilistic style and philosophy. Spielberg let it rest for several years, not as enthusiastic about the idea as Kubrick was.
I’m pretty sure that several of the ideas story writer Aldiss offered to Kubrick (and received rebuffs from Kubrick for) may have made their way into the final movie. There’s a detailed account of Aldiss’ working with Kubrick here. I particularly like this small vignette, which gives a glimpse of the film that might have been:
On one occasion, we were struggling with the concept of having a real android boy. It would be a first. Stanley claimed that Americans saw robots only as menaces. It was the Japanese who really liked robots; so they would breed the electronic wizards most likely to construct the first genuine androids.
He summoned his right-hand man, Tony Frewin, another sound SF buff.
“Get me Mitsubishi on the line.” (Let’s just say it was Mitsubishi, because the real company’s name eludes me.)
“Who do you want to speak to at Mitsubishi, Stanley?” Tony asked.
“Get Mr Mitsubishi on the line.”
A while later, the phone rang. Stanley picked it up.
A voice at the other end said, “Oh, Mister Stanley Kubrick? Is Mr Mitsubishi speaking. How can I help you?”
Everyone on the planet knew the name of Stanley Kubrick. One must expect such a man to be unlike the likes of us.
Thanks for the link Tim. I do remember Speilberg saying Kubrick offered him the project. I’m not sure I believe him.
So has anyone else seen I AM LEGEND yet? What did you think?
It’s not out here yet.
I’m seeing it tonight.
Just seen it. After the initials ups and downs of the suspense wears off I have mixed feelings about it.
It is indeed very cool seeing NY totally abandoned, and the scene with the lions was pretty cool. But after a while the cynic in me starts asking questions. Why is his car so clean? When did he have the chance to plant crops? Wouldn’t you kill yourself after 3 years of living in pretty much constant fear? Where does all the electricity come from? More importantly, where does all the water come from?
…and so on.
I do like the slight amount of character development they did in dealing with his loneliness and his isolation. And Will Smith is no where near as annoying as he can be in other movies. But the vampire things are just too CGI looking for my taste. Why do ordinary humans suddenly have superhuman strength just because they have some stupid virus?
Still. I was feeling a bit spooked upon leaving the cinema, so I guess the film did its job. Of course it could have been the blood stains on my front door from last night’s stabbing victim. (Not kidding either, London can be a mean city)
Nice to know it’s not just me.