I've loved the acting of Will Smith ever since I saw my first episode of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air back when I was seven. I've seen him grow as an actor with movies like “Men In Black”, “Wild Wild West”, “I, Robot” and his most recent film “I Am Legend”. I am torn, because the acting of Will Smith aside, the movie just did not impress me.
I Am Legend is a retelling of the classic Charlton Heston film Omega Man. Well technically, it's a retelling of Omega Man which is a retelling of The Last Man on Earth (with Vincent Price), which is a retelling of the 1954 novel entitled I Am Legend.
This movie tells the tale of US Army Colonel Robert Neville, who is a military genius, scientist and the last man on earth. The key difference between I Am Legend and Charlton Heston is the reason for the worldwide plague. The 1970s Omega Man natural chalks up the cause to nuclear war between China and the Soviet Union. Modern day I Am Legend decided to take a more “don't play God” route and went with a viral strain used to cure cancer that went bad and infected all but 1% of the population of the globe.
So we've got 90% instant mortality rate (these and the following figures occur within the film). Of the remaining 10%, 1% were immune for reasons that are never explained. The other 9% became what are referred to as “Dark Seekers”. Basically a cross-breed of vampires and zombies. The film becomes Neville's journey to develop a cure for the disease to make the Dark Seekers human again. His faithful companion Sam, a dog, is his only company in the destroyed New York City.
Now I'm gonna say it. Will Smith's acting was incredible in this film. But that was it. That was the only redeeming factor of this movie. Something that stuck out to me was when I had seen Neville do a great deal of irrelevant things (i.e. working out, bathing his dog and talking to mannequins) and then suddenly realizing that half of the movie had passed. While I get the need to point out how the lonely life is taking a toll on Neville's brain (particularly for the last twenty minutes of the film), there should be a limit.
They do pepper in a couple of action scenes which look like they were ripped from Day of the Dead, although the zombies in Day of the Dead didn't give me the heebie-jeebies as much as these ones. The first encounter with the Dark Seekers shows them standing around huddled in a corner, not moving a muscle. There probably is nothing scarier than a bad guy who knows you're there but isn't looking at you, not to mention a horde of them.
The plot doesn't really twist or deviate and is more obvious than predicting that the New York Jets will lose a football game. But still I can't really blame the film since it's only following after its big brother and in the end remakes of classic films just never work out.
And speaking of time-filling, what is the relevance of us being forced to watch two minutes of Shrek with Will Smith lip syncing all the dialogue? I mean at that point the director must have just given up and said “now how can we fuck up this film more?” And then we get Bob Marley's backstory which is apparently the point of the film, but it just seemed like I had accidentally turned on the director's commentary.
However despite all this I do recommend viewing it. After all, it's like your five-year old kid's spring play. You know its gonna be bad, but you love your kid and that makes it good… sort of.
So, the final verdict… you should rent this film. (6 out of 10)
