PopcornReel.com Movie Review: "I Am Legend" (Warner Brothers)

I AM LEGEND

The Pursuit of a Cure for the Cancer of Racism in 2010? -- If Anyone Can Find It, Will Smith Can

PopcornReel.com Movie Review: "I Am Legend"

By Omar P.L. Moore/December 14, 2007

Ripley's Believe It or Not: The moment that never comes in "I Am Legend" -- a replication of Sigourney Weaver's predicament in "Alien 3". Francis Lawrence's film, which stars megastar actor Will Smith (above) may have ties to "Omega Man", but has a deeper subtext about race, racism and survival of the fittest species, a classic Darwin line. (Photos: Warner Brothers)

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Robert Nesta Marley (aka Bob Marley) was a prince prophet of song and activism, and he is given a loving tribute in "I Am Legend", a sci-film that really isn't, even though director Francis Lawrence based his film on the sci-fi novel by Richard Matheson, adapted to the big screen by Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman. Will Smith plays Robert Neville, a scientist/virologist who apparently is the last man standing on planet Earth after a cancerous virus has entirely ravaged the world's human population. Much of that death toll enjoys re-animator like status in New York City, where Mr. Neville resides tensely with his best friend Sam the Dog, occasionally providing jolts for the audience in between large gaps of silence where the lone voice of Mr. Smith, who both narrates and provides most of the dialogue, fills the void amidst a Big Apple overrun by weeds and the kind of deer that you might have seen in an Allstate, Prudential or State Farm Insurance television commercial if you have been living in the United States sometime during the last year or so.

"I Am Legend", which opened across North America today, is a quiet film with lots of empty spaces, and an unconventional Will Smith action flick to be sure -- but therein lies its strength, because the solitude of Neville's circumstances work brilliantly as a parable about race, racism and invisibility, the kind of invisibility that Ralph Ellison once wrote about in his classic book Invisible Man -- and its imprint is both subtle and unsubtle here. There's one scene where Smith plaintively appeals for acknowledgment that is heartbreaking, and another where it appears that someone we see is alive and well -- but is this in Neville's mind? -- yet is anything but. Neville references Bob Marley and speaks of his songs as an antidote to racism and an accessory to acquiring and promoting peace and racial and social justice.

What gives "I Am Legend" deeper resonance where race is concerned than what appears on the film's surface is certainly Neville's solitude, but also the fact that in 2010 -- the time in which much of the film occurs -- all of the living-dead human-infected creature beings are white (or appear to be), as are the store mannequins Neville monologues with. Notably, near the film's conclusion, where Neville offers something that can perhaps save the planet and end a sickness, resulting actions speak volumes. As an analogy, when a dying racist chooses to forgo the cure of a black doctor -- the only medical professional that may be able to save him -- electing instead by default to die in the process, it is a telling commentary on the bleaker, more hateful side of human beings. Mr. Lawrence may not have ever intended his film to have such a deep subtext on issues where race and racism in America are concerned, but while watching "I Am Legend" it is difficult not to at least think once about those two subjects, especially in a scene where Neville gets caught in a bind that appears to plainly evoke a would-be lynching ("eenie meenie miney moe, catch a n----- by his toe . . .", went the refrain in a not-so bygone past.) Note: This critic has not read Mr. Matheson's book, so if the book addresses or suggests discussions about race, then Mr. Lawrence hews very closely to it.

"I Am Legend" could have been set in South Africa, lending an even more compelling socio-political dimension to the stakes, with Smith playing the same virologist but instead racing to find a cure to AIDS in a country where over 35% of its inhabitants are infected with HIV. No matter where "I Am Legend" would have been set however, the fact is that survival of the fittest is the order of the day, and when lions and deer overrun a formerly multicultural human jungle now populated by infected living-dead white/albino-like human beings, you had better be sure that the prey isn't you. (The story in "Legend" goes that the infected human eat the living ones, and Neville is close to becoming food on several occasions.) The film's production design (David Lazan and Naomi Shohan) gives an external atmosphere that is stark, grim, yet not overwhelming. Some -- especially those of the movie's audiences living in New York City -- may find the destroyed Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges a little too much to handle in the wake of the calamitous events of six years ago, but the realism of this apocalyptic scenario is stronger in the wake of 9/11/01, where it may have been less real and more laughable had those horrific events not transpired. Andrew Lesnie's cinematography lends occasionally hellish visions of a New York that Snake Plissken had the good sense to escape and get the heck away from decades ago.

Don't worry about a thing, cause every little thing's gonna be ... Will Smith as scientist Robert Neville, with companion Samantha the Dog, in "I Am Legend", directed by Francis Lawrence. The film opened across North America today.

The subtleties about race also come across in moments in "I Am Legend" when the film "Shrek" is referenced -- the specter of a green ogre -- voiced by Mike Myers, who famously blanched in surprise at Kanye West's on-air Hurricane Katrina benefit comments -- a lone, misbegotten creature in an environment foreign and unfeeling, attempting to find solace and companionship in the company of a donkey (voiced by Eddie Murphy) is a favorable or at least illustrative parallel to Neville's loner and his Samantha the Dog sidekick. Neville spouts "Shrek" dialogue chapter and verse -- it's like his Bible. He also evokes a Tiger Woods moment, and for the ladies (some of whom were heard cooing approvingly in the audience) shows off his physique as he exercises vigorously. He repeatedly sounds a signal over all AM radio frequencies, declaring that he can help any survivors within the sound of his voice -- you half expect him to say that he's the "Midnight Caller" Jack Killian, as played by Gary Cole on the now-defunct television series -- Neville's intonation and cadence is such that it feels similar.

In the last few weeks television commercials and trailers for "I Am Legend" in the U.S. have shown an "Alien 3"-like moment where Neville replaces Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in the position where one of the infected beings snaps dangerously close at Mr. Smith's head. Wisely, this moment does not make it into the finished film, for "Legend" is not a knock-off or a gimmick, and while it may seem on the surface to be a story told a thousand times before (think "War Of The Worlds" minus the living, breathing masses, or meant as a reference in some ways to "Omega Man"), under the surface a lot more is percolating.

Whether audiences will see or view it that way however, is quite another story.

Otherwise, "I Am Legend" is an ordinary and unremarkable thriller, with a no-frills visual effects plate to draw from, and little suspense. It is one of Mr. Smith's most tepid action films, albeit providing occasional action and jolts of visceral power, but it lacks the consistent pulse-pounding of other Smith action dramas like "Enemy Of The State", "Independence Day" and even "I, Robot". On its own merits, "Legend", which of course is also the name of Bob Marley's famous compilation album, largely succeeds -- and Mr. Marley's album, Neville opines at one point, is "the best album ever made." An audience member at this particular screening could be heard at that very moment muttering, "yeah, right," but if it is not the best album ever made, it is surely the healthiest. What isn't healthy (or best?) about singing about the need for peace, love and justice? Is it too tired a refrain?

On another level -- structurally, "I Am Legend" is weak -- but much of those deficiencies occur in the movie's final 30 minutes -- when a slight wrinkle, perhaps even a clunky wrinkle, arrives in the story. Ironically, it is an indispensable wrinkle, for without it the film's finale is purposeless. Even so, Mr. Lawrence could have taken a chance and let Mr. Smith dominate the screen for the entire film, quarterbacking its proceedings until the last play, without relying on flashbacks and other typical devices to elicit an emotional response from or connection with the audience. Will Smith, who delivers the goods once again for large stretches of this film, is more than capable as an accomplished and serious actor to take audiences on a journey wherever he wants to take them, without the trite and convenient exercises that films can sometimes make themselves obsessively lazy with.

"I Am Legend" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence. The film's duration is one hour and 41 minutes. Will Smith's daughter Willow makes her big screen debut, playing Neville's daughter. A year ago on this very Friday, Jaden, Mr. Smith's son, made his big screen debut in "The Pursuit Of Happyness". "Legend" also stars Salli Richardson and Alice Braga.