Legend, he ain't

Rating: 5/10 (11 May 2008)

First Asimov's I, Robot, now Matheson's I Am Legend; one has to wonder which sci-fi classic scriptwriter Akiva Goldsman will desecrate next, turning it into a lowbrow action movie starring Will Smith. Stranger in a Strange Land? Ubik? The new Fahrenheit 451 adaptation? *shudder*
The way I Am Legend follows only the bare-bone premise of the book, leveling every finer detail to the lowest common denominator, feels actually quite disturbing - a nasty middle finger shown to the audience (and to Matheson), the equivalent of saying "you don't deserve anything deeper".
Last human survivor of vampire/zombie apocalypse Neville (Will Smith) has been turned from resourceful everyman into a superscientist/action hero (a ridiculous character if ever there was one); his canine companion goes from miserable beggar to highly trained German shepherd; most disappointingly, the creatures crawling out at night are all simply evil monsters (and very poor CGI monsters), erasing any moral ambiguity. The whole point of the novel is lost: the very phrase "I am legend" implied that Neville had become the anomaly, the monster; in the movie, the title is reinterpreted with a dumb "I am the man!" meaning. Originally the ending was different (not identical to the book's, but at least thematically consistent with it) but it was received poorly by test audiences. Just sad.
Regardless of its value as adaptation, does the movie work as sci-fi/action entertainment? Well, the premise is ripe with potential, but the result is lightweight. One example can clarify this. There is a cool (in theory) scene in which Neville falls into a trap prepared by the monsters - never mind they had been described and portrayed as mindless morons: the script doesn't have clear ideas about their nature - dusk is approaching and three infected dogs are lurking in the darkness, ready to attack. The scene should be edge-of-your-seat stuff. However, since Goldsman has no clue of how to develop this material and director Francis Lawrence no idea of how to film it, it's simply another mildly suspenseful, "there goes my doggy, let's shoot the baddie" action scene, doing the absolute minimum with a solid concept - a description which fits the movie as a whole.
Smith gives a charismatic performance; however, he was probably not the best choice to play Neville. Smith's greatest asset as a star is the easy chemistry he develops with his fellows actors - trouble is, here his fellows actors are a dog and some mannequins. Smith is not a very introspective thespian (unlike, say, Denzel Washington), so casting him as the last man of Earth (kind of) was a rather poor idea.
Since Goldsman is also responsible for the assassination of Asimov's works, Batman & Robin and The Da Vinci Code, while Lawrence's pedigree includes some Britney Spears videos and Constantine, it would probably be a good idea to lock them together in a high security prison to prevent them from making other movies; and, for all I care, after Men in Black 2, The Pursuit of Happiness and I Robot, Will Smith can join them.
So, who's the next revered sci-fi author to murder? Bradbury? Dick? Fredric Brown? Time will tell.
Rating: As an "independent" movie: 5,5/10
As an adaptation of Matheson's novel: 3/10