I Am Legend

STARRING: Will Smith View Trailer RELEASE DATE: 12/14/2007 DATE SCREENED: 12/10/2007 The Verdict GOOD - See it in the theater

This was the year of the ‘threequel’, with the 3^rd installment of Spiderman, Bourne, Rush Hour, and Oceans 11 hitting screens this year. With the release of I Am Legend, we get a ‘three-make’, as this is the 3^rd theatrical version of Richard Matheson’s book “I Am Legend”. Having recently viewed the 1971 version, called Omega Man and starring Charlton Heston, my enthusiasm was dulled for this release. Omega Man was a bad movie filled with huge plot holes. But I always hope for the best from a Will Smith movie, since like Will, I am “west Philadelphia, born and raised”.

Smith stars as Robert Neville, a military scientist who may be the last survivor of a deadly virus. What started out as a miracle cure for cancer in the year 2009, somehow turned into a deadly virus that wipes out 90% of the world’s population. 1% of the population was immune, like Neville, and the other 9% have turned into vampire like creatures that can only come out at night. The creatures began to feed on those that were immune. It’s 3 years later, and Neville spends most of the day time hanging out with his German Shepard, working out, hunting dear, looking for other survivors, or going to the video store where he talks to the mannequins he presumably set up. He spends his nights locked in his home, huddling with his dog in a bathtub. It’s the same routine, day after day after day. Through flashbacks we see that Neville was a married father of a daughter, who worked tirelessly to find a cure before things got out of hand. He told his wife that he would “fix this” and he refuses to give up. Even now he has a basement lab in which he spends time working on a cure. In his daily log, after a close encounter with the creatures he comments that they are completely mindless having lost any sense of humanity. That statement turns out to be only partially correct. In reality, they have a leader who has put together a plan to capture and kill Neville as a response to the creatures Neville has captured in order to test his cures. Neville must work quickly, as the creatures are organized and getting closer and closer to finding him.

The plot isn’t very complicated, and I’m happy to report that all the plot holes from Omega Man have been plugged. I’ve never read the book, so I can only compare it to the previous movie version. Although the movie is very quiet, as the daytime scenes take place in a deserted New York City, every shot and line of dialog is advancing the story in some way. Some may feel that the movie is starting off slow, but everything pays off in the end. And you don’t have to wait long for everything to start paying off as the movie is only slightly more than 90 minutes. Will does a great job depicting Neville as a man who is fighting a growing insanity as he refuses to give up on finding a cure. This is not the usual Will Smith action film. It’s very tense and somewhat scary at times. After all, he is fighting vampire like creatures. It all culminates in a outstanding action sequence, with a much better ending than Omega Man. The crowd at the screening seemed to enjoy themselves, as they oohed and aahed at all the right moments. See this one in the theater.