Theproblem? Figuring out how to control the virus is difficult, figuringout how to obliterate it is nearing impossible for Neville. Armed withguns and a half-sense of sanity, he spends his day gathering suppliesand ‘patients’ for testing, while at night he spends his darkestmoments trying to survive. The virus hasn’t simply killed off thepopulation of people. The virus has mutated the population of peopleinto half-mindless zombies/half-vampires. They don’t communicate, theythrive on blood. They can only come out in the dark, never into light.For Neville, having to find a cure is the first choice of business, butneeding to go unnoticed is the second. Time is ticking away for him, aswell as chipping away at his sanity.
I had so muchhope for this film. The Heston version was good, not great. The Priceversion was the best, but now dated. Will Smith’s I Am Legend was a good mix of both, with maybe some poor choice of editing. Thestory essentially starts off well. You’ve got Smith as Neville huntingdeer in the middle of New York, trying to keep his food rationsactive/alive. The entire movie is a bit slow-paced, but the beginningcertainly does establish how desolate this poor guy is. The slow-pacecould be a nice representation of how lonely his life his. It couldalso establish how cut-off from the world Robert Neville truly is. Inthis sense, Will Smith pulls this off perfectly. On the flip-side tothat coin, you can see that the film is struggling with keeping Nevilledesolate and trying not to show too much action (which is what the filmis promoted as being). The original book lacked action, so they keepthat intact pretty well. The book focused mainly on the psychologicalaspect of the monsters trying to get the last known survivor of thehuman race. Heston’s movie brought this home pretty darn well.Occasionally you could see glimpses of sanity being chipped away in theSmith version. The place where the book and this version of the movietruly separate is the moment where the creatures are introduced. Thecreatures, for the most part — in the original story and in theprevious versions of the film — talk to Neville during the evening.They’re not mindless, just basically restricted from nearing him due tolights. The book seemed to capture everything creepy and surreal aboutNeville’s situation. He’s truly struggling to stay alive, doing hisbest to get through, but is psychologically being worn down by theconstant talk during the evening hours from the creatures he’s tryingto keep out. This movie turns Neville into more of a scientist on theverge of a great solution, dealing with a mindless population ofcreatures who just simply moan/groan. Creepy, yes. Psychologicallydamaging, not as effective as previous attempts or as effective as thenovel itself. Because of this straying away from the originalstoryline, the movie struggles to find footing. It has moments here andthere where you’re saying ‘DON’T!’, but generally you’re just waitingfor something to happen.
I watched thisDVD twice, just to be fair. It’s a good story that Smith and directorFrancis Lawrence have put together. If you’re not comparing this storyto the original story or the previous films, then you’ve got yourself agood movie. Certainly worthy of seeing, without question. But for mostfans of the book and of the previous films, there might be a slightdisappointment factor. Again, the film was toted as an action flick,but failed to deliver that. With the slow-pacing of the storyline andthe drawn out flashbacks (You’re nearly halfway through the film beforeyou see what happens to his family), it’s gonna be tough to call it’action’. I think if the flashback had been established at thebeginning, or at all once during a dream sequence, this would have beenmuch better overall. Because it wasn’t, you’ve got yourself a veryslow-paced film looking for an exciting way to bring the drearyatmosphere up.
Overall, it’s not a bad film. I don’t think you should ignore it or discount it at all. You should at least give it a rent before you buy. Keep in mind, I’m only a reviewer withone opinion. Just because I write for a commercial website doesn’t meanthat I know everything in the world. Just some things.
Special Features
What can yousay to this? I’m going to get killed for this, but I actually liked thealternate ending much better than the theatrical one. Without spoilingit, it gave more of a human element to the film and certainly broughtit back to the original storyline than the theatrical version produced.With that said, here’s what you get:
Disc One
– Animated Comics (4)
– DVD-ROM w/weblink to material
Disc Two
– Alternate Theatrical Version
It’s not much, to be honest, but the second version of the film was certainly worth a look-see.
Overall
It may seem like I’m overly critical of this film, that’s just that my expectations were so high. After viewing I Am Legend forthe second time, I do like it much better. I think that if there wasjust more time for a bigger story, more about Neville’s sanity than hisstruggle to find a cure, then it would have been much better. Since itwas taken a different direction, it certainly does bring a differentviewpoint to the film itself. The alternate version is worth your time,if you need a better excuse to watch this ‘almost’ masterpiece.