.::ON-FILM.NET -- FILM REVIEW: "I AM LEGEND" By "The Jacksaur"::.

Sometimes a movie is not just a movie. Unlike so many other mediums, film is not the work of a single author as much as the product of a series of warring voices, all attempting to get some semblance of their vision on-screen. The director, the star, the producers, the studio, the screenwriter, the source material; all aspects of a film are demanding to be served all at once, and when the clear vision cannot be achieved, a film is banished to turnaround -- AKA “Development Hell.” There it may languish for months, years, or decades, perhaps never to return to the eyes and minds of eager filmgoers.

Development Hell is a dark place from which few films return unscathed, and I Am Legend is more an example of this rule than an exception. The product of 13 years of script development (based on Richard Matheson’s classic novel, already the subject of two previous, unfaithful adaptations: 1964’s The Last Man on Earth and 1971’s The Omega Man, which also receives source material credit on Legend), Francis Lawrence’s impressive vision of the apocalyptic future has clearly been filtered through so many script drafts, studio notes, star notes, and budget concerns that somewhere along the line, everyone seems to have forgot about the story.

I Am Legend purports to tell the story of Robert Neville, a survivor of and key figure in a viral apocalypse that has left Manhattan unsuccessfully quarantined and transformed the human population into hyper-active vampiric zombies. Primarily a one-man-show, Legend follows Neville (with his only companion, a dog named Sam) through a slow, solitary mental deterioration as he attempts to discover a cure for the disease. While the movie has its issues -- which we’ll hit up in a second -- it is in this arena that the movie shines. Will Smith, an odd choice for Matheson’s protagonist, carries this movie on his ragged, chiseled shoulders, betraying a vulnerability and pathos not present in his filmography thus far. While his introduction -- a borderline silly solo car chase through the streets of abandoned New York in a shiny red sports car -- screams of studio or star interference, the majority of Neville’s daily routine is vividly drawn and starkly portrayed. These are punctuated by flash-back sequences that help to contextualize Neville’s isolation (they also serve to help us attain any exposition or back-story we might have missed). Smith puts great care and attention into this performance, which he apparently researched by speaking with men who had served in solitary confinement, and the end result is an extraordinary performance that redefines his capabilities as an actor. Perhaps the best of his career.

And for the first two acts of the film, all elements of the film seem to be working together to help him achieve this goal. Lawrence may not have the stirring, moving voice present in modern apocalypse classics like Cuaron’s Children of Men, but he sure as hell knows how to play to his film’s strengths. He trains the camera unflinchingly on Neville and never lets up; you will never forget Will Smith’s eyes again. Lawrence envelopes you in this character and world, and never gives respite for a moment. To help with this, Lawrence, along with a top-notch team of set and art designers, has created an alternate New York as original and interesting as can be seen in cinema to serve as Neville’s playground and prison. Flashbacks, often the burden of such films, are handled with grace and intensity (these are, at times, the highlight of the film). This makes Constantine look like a middling effort, and Lawrence truly comes away from this film looking impressive.

The film itself, however, suffers massive trauma from two disparate elements from which it never seems to recover. The first is caused by Smith’s real co-stars in the film: The Infected. The old adage that “your horror movie is only as good as your monster” still applies, even if this is mostly the “Will Smith Shell-Shock Hour.” And boy, do these monsters not live up to their human counterpart. It’s clear where the special effects budget went in this film (bridges exploding, New York looking overgrown, more things exploding), and it certainly didn’t go to the CG creature designers tasked with molding The Infected. This is a job that screams practical effects, these creatures do nothing that a human actor in prosthetics could not accomplish with infinitely more emotion and feeling. Go CG for the wide shots, by all means, but if you’re going to do a close-up of a significant Infected face, as Lawrence chooses to do quite often, don’t take us out of the movie with crap effects. Give us a face to latch onto. Give us real eyes. A movie like this demands it.

The more devastating problem with I Am Legend, however, is the ending. I’m not going to get into spoiler territory here, so I’ll just say this: somewhere along the line in the development process, it seems that they decided to: A) Completely disregard Matheson’s novel and the themes and points therein; and B) Blow their entire budget on their big end-of-act-II chase scene and shoot multiple endings to cover for the fact that they don’t have a third act. In every previous draft of this script (I’ve read ones by Mark Protosevich, John Logan, and currently-credited Akiva Goldsman) this film had a great twist at the end of Act II, a twist derived from Matheson’s novel that completely changes the way we see and understand Neville’s plight. It was the key to the script, without this revelation we were simply watching a man fight the inevitable. In the finished product, the film takes multiple steps toward this revelation, but turns back (look at Neville’s journal comments about the Infected, he’s foreshadowing events that never happen). In fact, just when we should be getting a twist, the damn movie ends. And not some earned ending, but a bizarrely implausible series of coincidences that drive us artificially towards and ending while completely undermining the themes and ideas of not just Matheson’s novel, but every earlier version of the script. I was appalled to hear that they shot multiple endings to this, as that almost always indicates a lack of confidence in your story, but to not shoot your entire third act? Ballsy. But also a mistake that leaves the film feeling oddly hollow after captivating its audience for so long.

I Am Legend is the very definition of a mixed bag, presenting some of the best and worst big-budget cinema you’ll see this year. Completely worth a trip to the theater, if only for “THE DARK KNIGHT Prologue,” but be warned. The movie’s got a nice big gut punch waiting for you at the end. And not the kind this movie needs.

"The Jacksaur" is a longtime BOF'er, "fanboy," as well as a working comic book writer.
He is also I'm also a diehard Batman fan who pretty much requires all friends and relatives to read
the Loeb/Sale Batman runs before discussing such things with him.