I Am Legend « Fortress of Solitude

I Am Legend

Many years ago, I watched The Omega Man, starred by Charlton Heston, directed by Boris Sagal, and inspired by Richard Matheson’s homonimous novel. Its title was followed by the sentence “The Last Man on Earth is Not Alone”:

That was a time when I looked for apocalyptical movies. Then I found out movies like Soylent Green (1973), Planet of Apes (1968), Logan’s Run (1976), The War of the Worlds (1953), and many others, and I did not only realize that Charlton Heston made as many movies of this kind as biblical’s but how great ancient sci-fi movies can be and how it’s not so strange the fact that many of them were remade.

I’ve always thought The Omega Man was one of the greatest and most curious movies ever. Maybe a little controversial for its time. So, it wasn’t a big surprise to know there was a remake coming on, considering the fact that The Omega Man is also a remake from The Last Man on Earth (1964).

Directed by Francis Lawrence, the man behind of one of the worst comic book’s adaptation to the movies in my opinion, and I’m talking here about Constantine, I Am Legend is starred by Will Smith, what is a good reason to be watched, beside the fact its predecessor is a great movie.

SPOILERS SPACE

The fact is, I discovered before watch it that the infected people on the movie would be less organized and wilder than the ones we can see in The Omega Man. In The Omega Man, they were like a society that couldn’t live outside during the day. But, in I Am Legend case, they’re like zombies. So, I instantly imagined I was going to watch something like Resident Evil. At last, I didn’t take this in consideration, after all, we have many movies like these, and even when their stories are quite similar, their essence can be different. Their zombies too. Especially when some of them are excessively slow as in George Romero’s films. Others, in another hand, are faster and, in many cases, smarter as the ones from 28 Days Later (2002) and Land of the Dead (2005). Okay, I may be wrong here, but the fact is I hate zombies movies and the zombies we see in I Am Legend are surprisely fast and terrifying and perhaps it wasn’t so bad to read these spoilers before watch it. So, let’s go back to the subject…

In I Am Legend, the humanity was infected by the K virus (Krippen virus), originally developed to fight the cancer in 2009. Strangely, three years gone, a miraculously immune military virologist called Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the last survivor living in New York City, and perhaps in the world. The virus immediately killed of 90% of all life on Earth, and less than 1% of the human beings were immune to it, leaving 12 million people not infected. However, 588 million of these uninfected people started to show symptoms and habits not human, and had developed basic instincts of hunger and blind anger, feeding themselves by anything and spreading the virus.

From his fortress, Neville observes these infected, which have a certain sensitivity for the UV rays and can not leave during the day, and he tries desperately to find the cure.

Things run out of control to Neville when he’s forced to kill Samantha after its infection during an attack where the scientist realizes the infected people are becoming smarter using his capture tactics. And when he’s in the imminence to commit suicide, he finds out others two survivors, a woman called Anna (Alice Braga) and a boy called Ethan (Charlie Tahan). Anna tries to convince him to run away to the mountains, where other survivors live. But Neville refuses to leave, alleging that everybody died. It is when the infected discover where he lives and start to attack them. Neville realizes the cure he was developing is making effect, and then he must make a choice without return and that can mean the salvation of the humanity.

For people who watched The Man Omega, it’s not so difficult to notice as I Am Legend is well faithful to its predecessor. To start, for the initial sequence, where Robert Neville drives his red Mustang with white stripes through the desert streets of New York City, with a very beautiful angle that shows us the city from above. The storyline is identical, and it doesn’t run away from its original. Obviously that Will Smith’s Neville is much more tormented by the solitude, what it’s shown when his only friend has to die and his destiny can not be different.

Some of the best sequences, besides the attacks of the infected people, of course, are when Neville drives through the desert streets of the city, when he walks into a forest in the middle of Times Square, where we can also see the poster of Superman vs. Batman in a proposital trick of the director, who was cogitated to direct it, and when a flock of servants crosses the front of Neville’s car in the streets.

I Am Legend is very good movie, and it accomplishes its mission. The script is well written and the adaptation is excellent. Will Smith is the great legend in the current cinema, and considering his last movies he will probably keep doing a great job.

Some pictures from I Am Legend: