Verdict:
I am legend gives a new angle at an apocalyptic epidemic. In terms of the premise, it reminds of the still fresh in memory movie called 28 Days Later, that is: survival in a post-apocalyptic zombie world, which is not a particularly original premise. But in terms of the quality of the execution, it is far better than anything of its kind.
The story follows Robert, a scientist who appears to be the only human who remained unaffected by a horrible pandemic that ravaged the world a few years prior. Robert tries to survive, find a cure for the virus and find other survivors.
With 90% of the movie centred on Robert, played by Will Smith, fleshing out this character is very important and, thankfully, proper attention is given to this goal. Robert is a man who is set on his goals, maintaining discipline, but at the same time, loses his discipline and composure when overtaken by anger and desperation following the loss of his family and the life in isolation. Will Smith successfully carries the movie on his shoulders, showing the humanity of the character, with all his imperfections.
The film spends some time on exploring the ethics of science, though very lightly, and the theatrical ending takes most of that contemplation out. The themes add a little flavour to the movie, but I Am Legend is still primarily about Will Smith going around Manhattan dealing with monsters.
The production features excellent shooting and editing, with notable transitions to and from Robert’s flashbacks. There are long takes when the camera follows the character around and the shake adds instead of detracting. There are many cool angles and zooms to provide an interesting view of the action.
The special effects are a mixed bag. The vampires look a bit silly and generic. There is that generic big mouth opening with a screech that you’ve seen in so much other horror media, but those shots are quick, so you don’t get to focus on the bad CGI. In the scenes where the creatures are shown for longer than a second, they also look much better. There are a few scenes with the car that are clearly computer generated but are shot in the dark, again hiding the imperfections as much as possible.
The most distinctive and interesting thing about the visuals is the abandoned Manhattan. Nature is slowly reclaiming the land, as the plants grow through the asphalt and animals take over the streets. It is both beautiful and scary. Will Smith racing through the overgrown Manhattan in the Ford Mustang has become an iconic scene.
The building and release of tension in this film is masterful and is responsible for much of this movie’s effectiveness. The danger from the creatures is ever-present. The emptiness and isolation causes anything out of place to be immediately suspicious. The sound work is a major contributor to this effective tension.
OK, now the endings. The big discussion surrounding this movie has been about its alternate ending that the test audiences rejected, in which Will Smith’s character turns out to be “the monster” rather than the zombies. This alternative ending is important, as it remains available to the public on some DVD editions, so it is worth discussing.
Some say this alternate ending makes much more sense than the one we got in the cinema’s and that the current ending misses the point of the book on which this movie is based. And I would agree, had the movie been built to fit that book’s ending, but it isn’t. The problem is that the monsters are shown as cartoonish aggressive crazy creatures from the beginning, so the alternate ending doesn’t work, as it requires you to forget parts of the movie.
At first, I thought that this was the result of Hollywood dumbing down the vampires from the book for the mainstream audiences, but the movie’s portrayal of those creatures is largely accurate to the source material. Most vampires in the book are also presented as mindless and savage. Only some have developed a primitive kind of community. “The human is the real monster” angle doesn’t work in that context.
The result of this all is that the theatrical ending is rather generic, while the alternative ending doesn’t fit the rest of the movie.
Still, I Am Legend is a must see. It’s not groundbreaking but it’s a quality piece of work in almost every aspect.