I Am Legend Review

So… ppl keep telling me that I always post movies that are so outdated… Well since you bother me so much, here is something decently recent….

 

    This new science fiction flick, directed by Francis Lawrence (also did “Constantine” (2005)), stars Will Smith.

The movie is set in the near future, where a plague has spread amongst mankind. Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the last living man. He is in New York City, where the plague originated from, where he is living and surviving. He is immune to this virus, and is therefore attempting to cure this virus by transferring his immunity on to the infected. He has so far been unsuccessful. We follow as he tries to keep going through this time of lonesome searching.

    The movie was a lot of many things. I know I talk to some of my friends and they tell me the same thing everytime I make this complaint, about something looking way too like another thing, and what they tell me is true but I still complain. I always complain that something isn’t original, and that it is almost the same thing as something else, and the truth is nothing is really original anymore, all the possibilities (or at least most of them) have been explored, everything is either romance/action/science-fiction/drama/etc. And the only difference from one movie to another is how they are presented and what aspect of the story they focus on. Which I guess is true, but I swear… this movie is basically 28 Days Later all over again, except with a scientist instead of a random dude. And instead of the random dude fleeing for some hopefully safe place, the scientist has made his home a stronghold to keep himself safe. And instead of the monsters being okay with all of it’s surroundings (like in “28 Days Later”) they do not like the light (as if they are vampires). So minus a few minor details the movies are basically the same. However, with all of that behind us, let the review begin.

So, firstly let’s get to my favourite aspect of a film, THE DIRECTING. The directing is this movie was perfect. The director made sure to pay attention to the madness of this one guy left alone with no human contact for over three years. Spending his time learning how to survive, and how to enjoy himself all at the same time. He has a purpose, to try and cure this disease. And we see some crazy things, like that this guy set up manequins all around in certain places and pretends that they are real people. Play a few jokes, say hi to them, and even name them. He even made a point to show how when a manequin was magically moved how angry and paranoid he became, because it took away from his closed space of life, how he tried to cope with his situation. The camera was used well for the intent of showing all of these things for the movie.

The story was also well done. The movie is not a 100% action vampire/sci-fi movie. It was this round about survival movie. The movie spends half of the time showing us this man’s methods of how he lasts this long in this empty world. Instead of forcing our hero into confrontations with the “vampires” and making us have some beautiful CG fight scenes with Will Smith (who of course is well known for his action movie-ness “Independence Day”, “Bad Boys” , “I, Robot”), it showed us how this character (Robert Neville) kept himself safe from these monsters.

The acting was good. Will Smith did well, especially being basically the only actor in the film. I’m sure if this movie took two months to film, Will Smith had company on set for at most two or three days. He got into his role well. he never seemed 100% settled, and also showed his constant need for companionship, which he could only find in his madness and his dog, Sam.

So overall this movie was good, but the only thing I can hold against it is that “28 Days Later” is so much better, so if you watch this movie and like, get to a rental shop and find “28 Days Later”.

IMDb says 7.6/10
Rotten Tomatoes says 64%
I say 7.1/10

btw.. any Will Smith fans, check out the trailer for his new movie coming out I think this summer called “Hancock” , movie looks fun/funny….