A while back I posted this rant against the new sci-fi movie I am Legend, starring Will Smith. While I still hold true to the notion that there is way too much effects-driven mindless science fiction, I am Legend was actually good.
It was an intelligent movie, and I was pleasantly surprised.
Astute viewers will notice a possible teaser for a Batman / Superman movie.
I’ll get into a more detailed review, but warning, there will be spoilers.
Last warning, do not read on if you don’t want to know what happens.
Will Smith plays Robert Neville, a military scientist working to find a cure to a virus that has killed 90% of the world population, and reduced most of the others to bloodthirsty vampire-like creatures called dark-seekers. We see his story, how he lost his family, and how he became the sole survivor in Manhattan (and he believes the world) through a series of flashbacks. Neville’s survives through routine as he works to find a cure to the virus which would make the dark seekers normal people again.
His sole companion is a german shepherd named Sam who along with his routine keeps him sane in a world gone completely not so. The movies most heart-wrenching scene is when Sam becomes infected from the virus and Robert must kill her as she becomes rabid. We are shown only Smith’s face as he smothers his only friend. Smith’s performance in this scene is what really makes it work, showing the dog would have simply been gruesome, but showing his pain was heartbreaking.
Soon after Sam’s death, Neville decides to commit suicide by fighting a large group of the dark-seekers. While the film does show his pain it skips past it briskly and does not linger long on the new totality of Neville’s solitude. I found that I couldn’t follow him so quickly into despair and felt that the movie should have lingered on his solitude a bit longer to bring us along with him as he wished to die.
Neville is rescued by another survivor, Anna. She tells him of a colony of survivors, whose existence was revealed to her by God. Neville angrily tells her that there is no God, that people created the virus, and only people (him) could make things right again. Neville doesn’t strike me as someone who has lost faith, but rather someone who believes that, as Bender from Futurama puts it: “You can’t count on God, He practically told me so Himself. ” His attitude toward finding a cure does not change at all from when the crisis began, and he is trying to get his family out of the city. Neville has put the fate of the entire world on his shoulders, “I can still fix this” he says both before and after the virus sweeps the globe. The image of the butterfly, symbolizing salvation appears, cracked in glass as he realizes that he has discovered the cure, but he must die to ensure its survival. This poses an interesting question: From where does salvation come? Does it come from God, or from human service and sacrifice?
My only real complaint was that the CGI was a bit intrusive. The dark-seekers were all computer generated serkis folk, but the worst were the CGI deer in a scene near the beginning of the movie. Overall, I highly recommend this movie, it is one of the best science fiction movies I have seen in a long time, it is intelligent, and Will Smith’s performance was very good.
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