AML Movie Review: “I Am Legend”

I took a super long lunch break today, having already put in plenty of OT this week at the office, and caught the second showing of “I Am Legend” at the nearby multiplex.

After seeing the trailer for this film over the summer, I knew right off that I had to see it. Once I found out it was based off a book, I immediately needed to read that. And I did read it and it was a highly enjoyable story. Probably one of my all-time favorites now.

So bear that in mind here. The book, written by Richard Matheson back in 1954, was a story about a virus that killed or turned people into vampires. Or at least, they were like vampires. Unable to come out during the day, afraid of garlic and crosses and could be killed with a stab to the heart.

Matheson used the vampire legend to form his story that being a vampire is really a disease. His story reveals his main character, Robert Neville, figuring out that historic plagues, like the Bubonic, was just a smaller explosion of this vampire sickness.

Other than there being a dog in both the book and the movie, that’s about where the similarities end. Which for me, was a bit disappointing, but also expected.

Will Smith plays Robert Neville in this movie set in New York three years after a man-made disease that was supposed to cure cancer, and did, started mutating and turning people into night-dwelling zombies.

The zombie special effects were about average, and without researching it at all, seemed to look a lot like the orcs from the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

Neville holes up in an apartment in the heart of Manhattan trying to find a cure. His blood somehow makes him immune to the sickness. He became a famous doctor in the army when the disease first was discovered and he was close to finding the fix.

But he couldn’t and people died. His wife and daughter died. Thus he’s stuck with the mission of finding the solution. He tests vaccines on rats and infected humans during the day, and hides at night.

He has a dog and that’s the one part I was glad they sort of copied from the book. At least, they took a tiny aspect of the dog story from the book, and it was one of the stronger memories I have of Matheson’s book. And it was one of the best scenes in the movie ironically.

Obviously stuff happens. Is he really the only human? Will his daily radio message find anyone? Can he discover a cure?

I’ve read a few reviews of this movie and the main thread of commonality between them is that everyone pretty much agrees it turns into a B-movie zombie film. So I was expecting that, but it was really more of the final scene or two in which that is evident, not the entire second half of the movie.

Yet that is still where this film failed for me. Not because of the zombies, but because of what they could have done.

Now, I’m not saying that Legend wasn’t a good movie. If you are just looking for good popcorn fun, then it’s great fun. Smith is pretty humorous at times when he has no one to talk to but his dog and the mannequins he sets up at the local video store.

There is a good, tense moment when they are hunting an elk through the city and the dog runs into a dark building and Neville goes after him. It was creepy and tense, which I thought was great.

My problem likes in the fact that they could have done so much more with this film. They tried to redeem it at the end, but I just felt Smith’s character wasn’t developed enough to make it that meaningful.

The book focuses more on the guy dealing with life with no one, making it though nights with the help of music and alcohol, obsessed with finding a cure and discovering something surprising at the end.

I think the directors and writers ignored a good chance to make a more serious science-fiction film instead of the summer blockbuster that we were given here. Instead of an action-ish movie, I wish it had been more of what the book had in it. If you’ve read it, you know what I’m talking about.

I’m trying to think of parallels. The Matrix for one, the first one, relied more on discovery and the mystery behind it all, instead of total action. Castaway was the other movie I thought of while sitting in the theater, and I just wish Legend had more of the solitude aspect that Castaway did.

“I Am Legend” just missed the boat a bit. It’s still a good movie, but you just feel kind of thrust into this world without really knowing everything that happened and without totally feeling Neville’s motivation for his work. It’s okay to not know what happened, but I just didn’t get that connection with the Neville character and that’s what makes movies great.

Again, having read the book, I was hoping for more. It could have been Blade Runner or The Matrix, but instead we got a much better War of the Worlds (the Tom Cruise one).

Grade: B-