I Am Legend
The signs were ominous, certainly. Another horror remake? Of a story already immortalized by the likes of Vincent Price and Chuck Heston? (In 1964's The Last Man on Earth and 1971's jut-jawed, so-camp-it's-back-to-straight The Omega Man, respectively.) And it's written by the guy responsible for Batman & Robin? And A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code and I, Robot and oh god stop me now? All that said, somehow, I Am Legend turns out to be a largely terrific, meanly gripping movie, anchored by a central performance from Will Smith at his most serious-minded. I'm as shocked as you are.
Akiva Goldsman's script stays remarkably faithful to Richard Matheson's seminal techno-horror source material: In the not-too-distant future, a New York scientist stands as the last unmarked survivor of a man-made plague that has killed half the world and changed everyone else into nocturnal albino flesh eaters. Director Francis Lawrence does some impressive work on both the large scale—the depiction of a moldering NYC is shuddery and wild—and the small. (An early, extended set piece lit only by flashlight is a genuinely freaky achievement.)
But, and this is a big but, the whole enterprise is nearly upended by the use of some noticeably lousy CGI effects. Not only does this decision smack of tech-addled laziness (can't Hollywood be bothered to find a real lion anymore?), but it also threatens to upset the whole ingenious premise of Matheson's novel: Rather than telling the story of a lone soul stalking and hiding from the remnants of society (in effect becoming a vampire), here it comes across as a guy being harassed by a bunch of googly-eyed, rubber-legged Colorforms. This rather revolting development can't wholly wreck the movie's accomplishments, but it does significantly compromise the otherwise stellar atmosphere. Ditch the computers, slather some greasepaint on some extras, and we'd be talking a minor classic.
- by ANDREW WRIGHT. The Stranger; Seattle
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