Grant About Town

December 10, 2007
Free Screening of "I Am Legend"

Spoiler Alert: This post contains plot elements of the movie, so if you are not familiar with the story read on at your own risk (or after you see the movie).

Being the cinephile that I am, I joined a movie meetup group when I moved back to Chicago last fall. We see movies at a few theaters around the city and also up north in Evanston, where they built this dynamite 18 cinema movie complex complete with stadium seating, THX sound and a cafe AFTER I was long gone as a Northwestern student. Nice. Anyway, I figured it would be a good way to meet some new folks while also satisfying my movie jones. Assuming there is something out there of interest I could go to a movie every week, and fortunately with this group that is an option.

Anyway, most of the time it is your standard go to the theater and buy your ticket routine. However, once and a while the group organizer comes up with freebies from one of the studios. Such was the case this week when Dreamworks hooked us up with free passes for the new Will Smith sci-fi flick "I Am Legend" at AMC River East downtown. I made my way over to the theater after work, got my pass and queued up in the lobby. At that point I proceeded to watch person after person cut in front of me in line to join their waiting friends. I said to my buddy Jough "Could just one of these people cut in line BEHIND me so I feel like I'll actually get into the theater?" You see, the pass does not guarantee admittance, as they always overbook for screenings with the assumption of no-shows.

The first casualties of the night were my friends Scott and Katie, as Katie got held up on the bus from work and arrived too late for the two of them to get in. The remaining casualties of this night were on the screen, namely all of mankind save for military virologist Robert Neville (Will Smith), who is the last man standing on Earth after a man-made virus intended to cure cancer goes horribly wrong and causes worldwide death as well as the severe mutation of survivors. So, as the movie poster says, he is not alone. The desolate streets of New York City are teeming with these mutated zombie creatures who hide in the catacombs and abandoned buildings of the city by day and come out looking for blood when the sun goes down.

The eerie tone is set early on as we see Neville speeding around the streets of the city with his trusty companion, Sam, a dog that is not only man's best friend but man's ONLY friend at this point. He tries to maintain some semblance of a routine, going to the video store and talking to a bunch of mannequins arranged throughout the room as if they are real people, trying to find an antidote in his basement lab and having dinner while watching old TV reruns. You wonder just why he is in such a hurry when he drives around and how he is able to have fully functioning utilities in this apolcalyptic world. As Kirk Honeycutt wrote in his review in the Hollywood Reporter, "All utilities work perfectly, which might come as a shock to New Yorkers who experience problems with water, gas or electricity when a full work force mans those departments."

Neville's loneliness and isolation is established for the better part of the first two acts of this 100 minute film, when we are quite suddenly introduced to a young woman (Alice Braga) and her son (Charlie Tahan) and the story moves into more standard action film territory. It also takes on a religious tone, as the woman expresses a faith in God that is not shared (to put it mildly) by the skeptical Neville. He was witness to the annihilation of humanity, after all, so you can't blame the guy for having his doubts in the powers of the Almighty. Here we see the Will Smith that many fans were probably expecting to see much earlier: Gun in hand, blowing up and shooting the CGI creatures that come storming into his house.

That said, this is not your standard Will Smith action movie. Smith is onscreen alone for 2/3 of the movie's running time, a daunting task but one that Smith pulls off admirably with his trademark charisma and some funny one-liners that include frequent quoting of the "Shrek" films. Smith shows some serious acting chops as he tries to reconcile his solitary place in this new world with his efforts to ensure the future survival of mankind. Slowly, the madness begins to set in as he tries to go it alone. The fact that I was more moved by the death of his virus infected dog than I was by the deaths of his wife and daughter is a little troubling, but that probably had more to do with the latter's presence only in brief flashbacks.

In general, I felt that a bit too much time was spent establishing Neville's routine and his isolation in New York City, at the expense of later character and plot development. Another problem I had is the film tries to be a cross between an action/horror picture as well as an old time sci-fi contagion paranoia fest a la the 1971 version "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston. I suspect that some will prefer the early, more contemplative portion of the movie that deals quite effectively with Neville's inner struggle, while some will prefer the third act's CGI action splatter fest and tidy feel good ending. It didn't quite all add up for me, but maybe it will for you.