An interesting and well unravelled genre piece that revels in its scenes of sheer terror, pure heartache and what some might call dopey symbolism.

Rating: 7/10 (14 July 2009)

I think 2007's I am Legend is a fitting enough adaptation of a popular book that I have read about in terms of it carrying so much weight in terms of ingenuity and inspiration for contemporary texts. Films like I am Legend come complete with threat of just collapsing under the sheer familiarity of both its set up and narrative, but this pulls through. In terms of its placement within the genre of survival horror, the film makes the grade rather easily, but it does so with its fair share of ideas; dramatic set pieces; genuinely heartbreaking moments and striking visuals of deserted contemporary Western pieces of iconography.
I am Legend sees a solid, if familiar, set up involving what was first assumed to be a cure that helped humankind but actually carried a bit of a hitch. This is somewhere in late 2009. What was a cure for cancer progressed into a formula that mutates the individual it inhabits into something known as a Darkseeker which, rather obviously by name, demands they stay out of sunlight and in the nooks; crannies and rundown, abandoned buildings that make up the bulk of what is most probably all of the world's major towns and cities. So as to come across as contemporary, the film avoids the term 'vampire' in the same sense 28 Days Later avoided calling its antagonistic force zombies by manipulating into the text a plot point that demanded they be labelled 'infected'. Non-existent by day but screeching loudly and dominating the city by night, they act as a fairly interesting anti-human component to the text.
During the opening, mankind as a species is relegated to that of resembling an ancient hunter; wondering, perhaps aimlessly if the daily goals are not achieved, through a once bustling arena of contemporary life represented by towering buildings; street lamps; cars and numerous vast, once electronic, billboards that used to display advertisements for the latest in 'must have' consumerist items. All of that has gone and, albeit aided with an automobile of his own, the individual shots of a wandering lead seeking out game for means of nourishment work well.
The lead is Robert Neville (Smith), a once top U.S. Army virologist, now rendered the only known human left in New York City after having spent three years on his own. But he is accompanied by the film's non-human component, which comes in the form of his German Shepard dog named Samantha. For its very brief and relatively basic substance during this opening, I am Legend calls, albeit meekly, on inspiration from 2000's Cast Away as a man struggling with his loneliness in this dystopian setting. If Cast Away took place on a beautiful and somewhat exotic deserted island and turned it into a place of terror and no hope, then I am Legend's look at New York City as a place that retains its contemporary look and vast feel, only with undergrowth beginning to take over. The key difference is I am Legend's ingredient of an antagonistic force in the Darkseekers, something the lead must be weary of.
But it is all very brief. Some key scenes to get across this factor of loneliness sees Neville interact with mannequins he has taken from other shops and actually placed in stores he visits to get across a sense that he is communicating with people. I am Legend's decision to break the film up into past and present tenses works surprisingly in its favour. The cut aways from the first instance we hear the Darkseekers howling in the night leave us on a knife edge of sorts as we go back into the past for some brief pre-apocalyptic story to do with Neville and his wife and young daughter. Addtionally, the flashbacks don't feel as intrusive as they might've done; we can take a break from Neville in his post-apocalyptic world and hark back to see the development of the outbreak without really feeling frustrated or torn away form something. The approach and this manipulation of time aids in distancing the film from things like 28 Days Later and the subsequent sequel released around the same time as I am Legend.
If there is any substance in I am Legend, then it is rather unfortunately linked to the finale and the very end of the piece, which halts going into things too deeply. Other than this, the film is principally a nuts and bolts survival horror only with the lead being able to freely inhabit the space in which he is surviving in during the day. Items are removed from the text and the film dips slightly, whereas certain other elements are installed into the text, even if they carry a nagging, obligatory feel to them.
It's thought that when the third element that does actually meet with Neville stumbles across him, it was God that brought them together. The introduction of God via the dialogue is a distinct shift towards what the film ultimately builds to: a scene of great sacrifice so that millions of others may live on, echoing the plight of Jesus Christ. It's the sort of symbolism that'll have some groaning in frustration, others crying gallons of tears, depending on which way the text sways you. But I bought it, and I enjoyed all the somewhat familiar point of attack; establishing of the situation; Neville's routine plus relationship with the new world in which he lived as well as the overall direction the film took me.