Reader's Review: I Am Legend

By Kellvin Chavez on December 4, 2007

I just got a review from trustworthy reader 'Tony Malo' who got a chance to check out Will Smith's upcoming flick "I Am Legend," which is based on Richard Matheson's 1954 novel.

In the film Robert Neville (Will Smith) is a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable, and man-made. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City and maybe the world. For three years, Neville has faithfully sent out daily radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. But he is not alone. Mutant victims of the plague -- The Infected -- lurk in the shadows... watching Neville's every move... waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind's last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood. But he knows he is outnumbered... and quickly running out of time.

Here is Tony had to say, but make sure to come back and check the Movie Review section for our thoughts on the film in the coming days.

Hola Amigos, just got out of a screening of I Am Legend and wanted to send you guys my thoughts on the film.

I never read the original novel "I Am Legend" is based on, but I did read a comic book adaptation by Steve Niles, who eventually ripped it off with his vampire graphic novel "30 Days of Night."  It’s probably the most faithful adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel you'll see, more so than the new movie.  Though the movie is good, it’s not the escapist popcorn flick they want you to believe it is.  In some ways I'm kind of glad, because Will Smith's shtick is getting rather tired.  He doesn't act, but showboats for the camera and somehow winks at his audience even when he's doing drama.  Not here.  He's pretty earnest and heart-felt as not only the last black man on earth, but the last man on earth, period.  You're probably familiar with the premise, but I'll give you the skinny real quick: Will Smith is the last man on Earth.  Okay, maybe not that quick.

The entire population of the planet has been wiped out by a man-made virus that was designed to cure cancer.  When man plays God, the Devil comes out to play and a small percentage of survivors have turned into blood-thirsty creatures with skin that burns in sunlight.  Will Smith is a military scientist who was working on a cure when the crap hit the fan and Manhattan was cut off by blowing up the river crossings.  Didn't help 'cause he's all that's left.  He lives where no black man has ever lived before, a townhouse in Washington Square with a German shepherd and conduct experiments in the basement to find a cure.

Though the New York he lives in is a few years from now, it must be in some kind of Warner Bros./D.C. Comics alternate universe, because in Times Square on 47th St. and Broadway is a giant billboard with the Batman/Superman comic book logo from a movie we know will never get made.  Times Square as well as the rest of the city is barren, save for foliage and the occasional herd of deer.  In one sequence Smith chases a herd in a suped up red Mustang only to run into Simba and his pride who show him who's really king of this concrete jungle.  Guess someone left the gates to the Bronx zoo open.

Smith like to workout, play golf on the Intrepid aircraft carrier and converse with his plastic friends.  No he's not into kinky stuff, but he's set up a couple of mannequins at that abandoned Tower Video location in the Village.  He even asks the “clerk” who’s the pretty girl in one section of the store – the porno section if you look closely.  Though his German shepherd is a loyal dog, she sometimes gets him into trouble.  In one of those "don't go in there" scenes, the dog chases a deer into a dark building.  Those creatures like to hide in the dark so if I were Smith I'd tell the dog she was on her own, but of course he doesn't.  Can't say I blame him since this German shepherd is the last “man's best friend” for the last man on Earth.

A good hour of this movie is Will Smith and the dog and though that sounds pretty boring I was surprised to find myself on the edge of my seat.  There's one spry sequence with the dog going into that dark building but basically no action.  I didn't mind, but I wished those CGI creatures didn't all look the same.  They seem to really hate Smith too and are always screaming or trying to bite into him.  One in particular, the leader, looks like an angry hairless Bruce Willis.  As if Bruce Willis wasn't already angry and hairless.

Before I read the graphic novel, I was interested in what the rumored Ridley Scott and Arnold Schwarzenegger "I Am Legend" was gonna be like.  Whatever city it was to take place in, you know that Arnold was probably gonna blow up half of it before the movie was over.  As a Ridley Scott film it probably would have been filled with smoke and taken place entirely at night.  They would have changed the ending as well, like they did here, but at least this one has the same nobility as the book.  There's a point when it looks like Smith might get a little action between the sheets when Alice Braga and a little boy show up as uninfected survivors.  They actual hook up in the graphic novel, but I was surprised to find I'm glad they didn't get it on here.  He still tries to turn her on with a little Bob Marley though.  Still after catching her in "Lower City" I wouldn't have mind seeing Braga naked.

"I Am Legend" is a drama and Will Smith hits this one out of the park.  It's not easy for a former rapper from Philly to play a guy living alone with a dog and have the audience sympathize with him, but it works.  Sure he sheds a few tears, but they seem genuine and not like someone off camera held an onion under his eye.  You feel for the guy because he feels helpless, feels he can't save mankind and has lost his wife and child.  If Salli Richardson were my wife I'd cry too.

I don't know what they did, but they really represented New York well.  This is the Manhattan that I know, not a studio back lot with grass and weeds growing through the concrete.  When Smith turns his mustang off of Sixth Avenue he hits Fifth, then the flatiron building and Park Avenue or whatever familiar landmarks and locations there are throughout this familiar city.  It must have cost them a fortune and when Smith fans discover this 'aint an action movie, they'll never make that money back.

"I Am Legend" was made by the same guy who directed "Constantine" and they are obviously two different movies.  For once we don't get an Mtv video style pic that's made by a former music video director.  The fact that you really feel like you're in an abandoned New York makes it feel more real and helps you connect to Smith more.  I just wish the creatures were more realistic or even Vampires like in the book.  If you like Will Smith, come check out a way you haven't seen him act or may not again.  It's not his all-time academy performance, but its miles ahead of seeing the Governator blow up most of New York.

Overall I give this film Two and a Half Stars

Tony Malo

Source:Tony Malo

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