I Am Legend

The Richard Matheson novel "I Am Legend" has been filmed twice before: with Vincent Price (at the height of his Roger Corman affiliation) and Charlton Heston (mid-way between "Planet of the Apes" and "Soylent Green") in the Will Smith role. It's hard to beat that pedigree. I wanted to see the new version in hopes that it would fulfill the camp quota that the earlier flicks must; to my surprise, the 2007 film is hardly campy at all--it's good in a good way.

One wouldn't think that such results would come from a movie directed by the maker of "Constantine" and pop music videos, Francis Lawrence, and Akiva Goldsman, the screenwriter of recent Ron Howard pictures. But, combined with the talents of a venerable sci-fi writer, the filmmakers balance schlock and safety so perfectly that those specters are hardly evident. What the film does have is a successful conflation of diverse sources: "Cast Away," zombie movies and "Children of Men."

The "Cast Away" element comes from it being a largely one-man show. It's Will Smith as the last man in post-Apocalyptic Manhattan, a virologist named Neville who spends his days fortifying himself against and trying to cure a wolf pack of subhuman zombies--victims of a pandemic caused by a cancer vaccine gone awry. His encounters with the "night-seekers," who--of course--are allergic to the sun, are wonderfully suspenseful. But they're all the better because you're so attached to Neville that the thought of losing him is terrifying. This, of course, would not be possible if Will Smith didn't give such a strong, endearing performance. He needs to hold up the movie and he does. To make his job easier, the story employs the old trick of giving him a loyal pooch, Sam. She's a relic of Neville's lost family (whose demise is revealed in flashbacks) and she's the only thing he has to hold on to, the only reason he has to not break down and reveal his utter desperation and underlying pessimism.

His character and our empathy for him drive the movie and Lawrence, surprisingly (but correctly), takes this for granted. The CG rendering of abandoned New York is remarkable, but, after the beginning, it's hardly dwelled on. We become unerringly accustomed to it like Neville has. In fact, the film opens with him hunting deer through Times Square--which is probably a wee bit too forested (it's only 2012, after all)--but the perversity of the situation is apparent. As much as Neville likes to pretend it's not, we learn more and more that the world we know is gone--and it's chilling. The acute isolation--and its effect on the psyche--is more "Twilight Zone" than horror movie. (Unsurprisingly, Matheson wrote several episodes of that show.)

Eventually, a few other stragglers--a Brazilian nun, Anna (Alice Braga), and a tight-lipped boy (Charlie Tahan)--show up and a horde of surprisingly resilient zombies break through Neville's defenses. It's a good, if perfunctory, action-film climax, but the traditional cat-and-mouse fun is mixed with a deep-seated fear for the heroes. When they get cornered, there really is no place else for them to go. The movie then makes a noble decision--an affirmation that Neville's work has been worthwhile. It's due to a last-minute contrivance, but it's a fair trade-off for the development of Neville's spiritual dilemma and his interplay with Anna.

"I Am Legend" is not without contrivances, genre conventions and storytelling deficiencies (it implies that the devolved zombies are evolving, but never follows up); however, overall, it's a remarkable piece of craftsmanship. Lawrence doesn't cheat you on any of the important elements of a science fiction-thriller: action, suspense, a thought-provoking sci-fi premise--and a compelling human element, to boot. It's not as inspired a movie as "Children of Men"--it's slicker--but it's an absorbing, effective piece of entertainment.