Will Smith, you've never been in a bad movie. Well, there was Wild Wild West, and Hitch I could probably have done without. Okay, sufficed to say that your track record is pretty good. And really, I Am Legend doesn't hurt that record, but it sure doesn't do anything for it, either. Mr. Lawrence, I know you were trying to direct an atmospheric piece, an experience, but half way through the movie, you lost my attention. And I was eager! On the bright side, I bet you could knock Six Degrees of Separation down to a cool three, now that most of humanity has been taken out of the picture.
The Movie:
The movie stars Will Smith as Col. Robert Neville, doctor and scientist, alone in the plush, fertile world of New York City of the future. Col. Neville has lost his family, his friends, co-workers, even his child to an epidemic virus that emerged from efforts to create a cure for cancer. Instead of curing cancer, the population of the Earth are transformed into pale, blood drinking vampires zombies I'm-not-sure-whats. They're fast, they're hungry, and, chances are they didn't like Independence Day.
Will Smith in I Am Legend
That doesn't stop Robert Neville from trying to save them, noble man that he is, but his efforts for the last three years have gone unfulfilled. Though said before, it should be stated once more that the story is intriguing, the premise is frightening (nerve wracking at the best of times), and the effects & action are solid... when they occur, every half hour or so. The movie deviates from the book in that the epidemic was not originally caused by man, and the vampires in the book were actually political, having formed a hierarchy, or society unto themselves. The presence of order, and feelings, within the zompires (vambies?), might have been inspiration for the alternate ending of the movie, found on Disc 2 of the 2-disc set. I don't want to give too much away, but if you've ever wondered what a romance flick inside of a zombie flick, played by the zombies themselves would look like, this ending is about as close as it gets, unless you turn to your B rated movie collection.
I loved the premise, liked the atmosphere, but became impatient about half way through this promising title. It was good to see once.
Is it a 'zompire' or a 'vambie'?
Picture & Sound:
The quality of the image & sound of I Am Legend on this disc is free from criticism. The movie was well shot, edited (asides from previously stated complaints regarding length), composited, and mixed, providing convincing scenes of New York as it might appear 3 years after the maintenance staff started using toenails as condiments (crunchy!) Even when upscaled onto a 1080p screen, artifacts from DVD compression were not to be seen -- the encoding of this movie was top notch. Unfortunately, the Blu-Ray version of the movie was not available for critique.
Extra Features:
The 2-Disc version of I Am Legend has a total of four special features. Five if you count the "digital copy" of the movie provided as a Windows Media Format file, for the twelve of you who have Zunes (or other "Plays For Sure" devices). The other features of the disc are actually quite good, if short in supply. They are all short "animated comics," or still images given motion on screen to create the illusion of 'animation.' If I haven't undersold you just yet, they're actually very enjoyable. Each story is written about Robert Nevilles unseen counterparts -- other survivors from around the world. The first three shorts are simple narratives outlining the lives of a young girl in China, a family in South America, and a convict in Colorado. Each have their unique depressing spin on the world post-epidemic. But the fourth short film is the crown jewel of the batch. Shelter tells the story of a young Indian woman who forgoes her fathers advice to join the family in a bomb shelter to meet her love once more, just to be infected by the time she returns home. When her father refuses to open the shelter, and the infection starts to kick in, the story takes the altered perspective of an infected person, and how their view of reality becomes different from our own.
The extra features carry a quality of their own that, while not compensating us for the lack of other extra features, are worth the watch. The alternate version of the movie itself is relatively unchanged until the final two chapters. I enjoyed the movie, but I have no desire to watch it again, and the extra features are not enough to justify a purchase.
I Am Legend (2-Disc Special Edition) *** (out of 5)
101 min. / Rated PG-13
Directed by Francis Lawrence
Starring Will Smith, Alice Braga
Related links: Amazon.com, IMDb, Trailer
Review by Dave Leggett
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