Movies: I Am Legend

I read Richard Matheson's I Am Legend last year, and I was very much enjoying it until half way through the book, the story ended. The remaining pages of the book were filled with short stories, and not very good ones at that. I still feel cheated from that experience. I also remember seeing The Omega Man, the 1971 version of the novel staring Charlton Heston, and thinking it was cool. But I was a young slip of a girl back then and easily impressed with any horror/science-fiction tale. Some things don't change.

Will Smith takes the role this time, and if the opening week's box office is an indication it was a brilliant casting move. I Am Legend is not an easy movie to watch, so it is a credit to Smith's popularity they he brought people into cinemas for this post-apocalyptic drama.

As you would expect from a movie about the supposed last man on earth, there is not a lot of script. Smith's character talks to himself, his dog and some strategically placed shop dummies, in an effort to keep his sanity. By day he patrols the abandoned and overgrown streets of Manhattan, searching for supplies and signs of life. By night, he barricades himself in his house off Washington Square, as the blood-thirsty, virus-infected mutants infest the streets. The shots of a desolate Manhattan are impressive and Smith gives a passable performance of a man just hanging in there. At times, it is bleak and unsettling, but for a Hollywood movie, this is quite an accomplishment.

Personally, I missed the menacing, calculating vampires of the novel. This version shows the mutants as blood-lusty animals with only one example of any evolving intelligence. My other criticism is that it all feels a bit familiar. If you've seen 28 Days Later, then you'll know what I mean. There are no surprises: a world without people results in a movie without characters. There are flashbacks to the pre-virus NYC, but they serve more as a tool for understanding Smith's isolation rather than providing any real drama.

It's not a bad effort for an atypical Hollywood project although it would be interesting to see how it would have worked with a less star power behind it. No disrespect to Smith, but in the hands of a less crowd-pleasing actor it could have evolved into a fantastic and gripping study of a man's despair and isolation in the face of a changing planet. The book's, and therefore movie's, title refers to the character's realisation that he is the anomaly in this new society. That scenario is never explored in this movie.