I Am Legend
Plot:
The last
man on earth is sitting in his living room. There is a knock at the door.
Comments:
I was looking forward to 'I
am Legend', almost as much as I was dreading it. With a screenplay by Akiva
'Batman & Robin' Goldsmith, the third adaptation of Matheson's novella had
stinkburger written all over it. Well leave it to Hollywood to find new and
creative ways to be stale and lazy. What most of were expecting to be a
ludicrous farce turned out to be simply disappointing in a wholly different way
than anticipated.
But before we start dumping
on the film I'd like to further my rep as an uppity jackass by dumping on a
couple of typecast audience responses!
Since Smith got his start in comedy-a fecking decade ago-there are some nimrods
who will refuse to take him seriously no matter what he does with the rest of
his life.
Apparently there is an epidemic of frat boy giggling during such silly,
pointless scenes as when Neville has to destroy his only companion with his bare
hands, or when he breaks down and starts begging manikins to talk to him. Behind
me, there was a perfect example of such a Darwinian cul-de-sac speaking with his
friend (I believe his name was "dude".) about how there was too much
speaking in the movie, and not enough explosions. He then took a cell phone call
during the film.
He's dead now.
On the other side of the
coin we have the hyper-purists. Now I'm a nerd, so I have a tolerance and even
little understanding for this mindset. Therefore what I say now is not out of
scorn.
Text is text, film is film; the medium are DIFFERENT. Cultish devotion to
written source material (especially one that IMHO doesn't even fit together that
well) does not necessarily make you smarter than the rest of the audience, just
a different flavor of annoying. Hell, there're are some people still complaining
about Jackson shafting Tom frickin' Bombadil.
Setting that aside, the
Hollywoodification of Matheson's work did not turn out as an even more banal
version of 'Omega Man'. Oh there are a few instances of needless explosions and
fight scenes, but they never overwhelm the flow of the film. Heck, if anything
they add some needed tension to a film so underspoken that it has a tendency to
be a bit wearing.
Special effects are pretty un-special and when cgi is brought to the forefront
it is terribly disappointing. (As it almost always is.) A scene in Times Square
featuring feral lions looks as bad as anything out of 'Jumanji'. Likewise
Neville's main opponent (not Cortman, but the apparent mate of a creature he is
experimenting on) looks something like an overlit Imhotep.
This is especially annoying, given some exceptionally terrifying action scenes
where implacable hordes of zombies scurry about cloaked in darkness. A lesser
film would have shown us all the ghouls head-on and perfectly lit, thereby
destroying any power the creatures have. The occasional subtlety adds immensely
to the movie's enjoyability, but when 'Legend' forgets to incorporate it, it
looks like a film ten years old.
The plot does manage to
carry itself through the first two acts at least, and most if not all of this is
due to the talent of Will Smith. Now I know our Xenu fearing, Hitler
therep-ating
Fresh Prince isn't to everyone's taste, but I've always had a soft spot for him.
The chemistry between him and his canine costar is anything but artificial.
Likewise when things turn ugly, Smith's suffering hardly seems like artifice. It
certainly helps that Neville is no Mary Sue; a trap any film about the last
struggling human could have easily fallen in to. (Compare and contrast with 'RE;
Extinction'. Or better yet, don't. No one should have to watch that canker sore
of a flick.)
When Neville is forced to fight the undead on their own terms, his attitude is
not one of steely resolve, but panic and trepidation. Far from a flawless
genius, Neville misidentifies the actions of his stalker as resulting from the
breakdown of societal impulse, rather than some flicker of lingering sentiment.
Furthermore, when finally confronted with other living humans, his reactions,
while perhaps excused by long isolation, are still arrogant and hostile. The
last man on earth, thank God, is an actual man.
But what's all this then
about other living humans? Well of course this is a mainstream film, so plot
rewrites, thesis revisions, and other general dickery is unavoidable it seems.
Yes, a pretty lady and a youngin' come to ask Neville to flee with them to a
human colony, no, they aren't just vaccinated vampires (at least we lost that
nonsense) and yes, it pretty much let's the air out of the whole damn narrative.
The real stake through 'Legend's chest however is that it jettisons the 'chess
game with fate' structure of the novella. Neville doesn't hunt the undead, for
the simple reason that they don't pass out insensate during daylight. Likewise,
they seem to be unaware of his existence at all, and when they finally do set
sights on him, are reduced to setting traps rather than direct confrontation.
There are no shrieking nocturnal threats, lewd enticements or guerilla
psychology. (While the ghouls are effective in their brutality, they
unfortunately don't posses the personality for even rudimentary communication.)
The undead are ignorant of Neville's actual whereabouts and the instant they
learn of it, their onslaught proves much more than he can handle.
Which of course brings us to my old sticking point, the resolution! I don't
intend to spoil much for you, but let's just say that it's amazing that an
ending can preserve Neville's martyrdom and still be so damn fluffy. While the
original climax was dissonant with the suspenseful narrative preceding it, it
did at least resolve itself in magnificent irony. Here, there's no real point
other than 'Neville is kewl'!
And that's pretty much 'Legend' in a nutshell. It's technically well made, much better than I thought it would be as a matter of fact. But like the ghouls that scurry about within, there's a hollow spot in the middle of the film where a soul should reside, and unlike the critters, it just lacks bite.
5.5