Certification. 15
Running Time. 1 hour 41 mins
Director. Francis Lawrence
Cast. Alice Braga, Will Smith, Emma Thompson.
Rating. 64%
Days after Warner Brothers announced a sequel starring Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan, I rewatched Francis Lawrence's I Am Legend.
I Am Legend is the third adaptation of Richard Matheson's seminal post-apocalyptic horror novel, following The Last Man On Earth (1964) and The Omega Man (1971). Matheson's novel was highly influential in the development of the vampire and zombie genre. George A. Romero cited the 1954 novel as a major influence on Night Of The Living Dead (1968).
I Am Legend opens with Dr Robert Neville (Will Smith) apparently, the last man alive in New York City. A man-made virus that was intended to cure cancer instead killed off most of the human race. The remaining infected survivors have now transformed into vampire-zombie creatures, known as darkseekers.
Will Smith delivers a self-assured performance sustaining interest despite the sparse action early on. Character development is prioritised over jump scares or a mindless blood fest. Smith is careful to only slowly reveal the instability growing beneath the self-control of years alone.
The opening two-thirds of I Am Legend is a study of survival and the resilience of the human spirit. Here, where the film is light of action, the film is at its best. I Am Legend could have easily been a seminal piece of work, every bit as compelling as Cast Away or The Martian. Initially, the terror in I Am Legend comes from the horror of being alone. Each day, when the sun is at its highest point Neville waits at a jetty on the docks for other survivors to make contact. Each day he is disappointed.
But the final third of the film is ruined by the introduction of two new characters - Anna (Alice Braga) and her son Ethan (Charlie Tahan). Anna's arrival is presumably a sign of hope, perhaps even redemption. But her appearance completely undermines the earlier part of the film, the three years Neville has endured as the supposed last man on Earth.
This results in an immensely frustrating conclusion, especially in the original overly-sentimental theatrical release. A director's cut with an alternate ending - an ending closer to Matheson's original source material - offers some consolation. Man's reign as the dominant species on the planet has come to an end. Neville eventually realises that the darkseekers are evolving. Intelligent, sentient and the future of humanity. He is the past, soon to be nothing more than a legend to them. This realisation certainly has more resonance with earlier scenes and the film's ambiguous and enigmatic title.
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