Three Times A "Legend"

Rating: 8/10 (16 December 2007)

Richard Matheson's 1954 novel "I Am Legend" is universally considered a touchstone in modern horror and science fiction literature. Its story of the last known living man on Earth trying to survive an onslaught of mutants bought on by a terrible plague has been the stuff of many cinematic variations (including NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD), plus two loose adaptations--1964's THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (with Vincent Price); and 1971's THE OMEGA MAN (with Charlton Heston). And in our time, it is now Will Smith who has the burden of being that Last Man in this third version of "I Am Legend", using the novel's title this time around.
Smith takes up the role of Robert Neville, who had been a virologist in 2009, trying to contain a once-promising cure for cancer that instead became a violent plague and killed off practically the entire Earth's population. Now, in the year 2012, he roams around New York City (the novel has this set in Los Angeles), foraging for supplies during the day with his German shepherd Samantha, trying to contact anyone who might still be alive, and making it back to his townhouse before dark--because that's when other survivors come out, and they are the Infected, or "Dark Seekers." His main business is to try and find an antidote for the virus, which is the only way he keeps sane. And then his world takes a turn when an uninfected survivor (Alice Braga) finds him, and he sees some ray of hope.
As with the previous two films based on Matheson's novel, I AM LEGEND does follow certain aspects of its source material: a plague killing off the population; flashbacks to the start of the horror; mutant survivors hounding for Smith's blood; and the appearance of uninfected people in Neville's world. On other points, unsurprisingly, this version of "I Am Legend" really isn't any closer to its source than the other two were. In one sense, this version, directed by Francis Lawrence and scripted by Mark Protosevitch and Akiva Goldsman, reworks aspects of the John and Joyce Corrington script of THE OMEGA MAN in making Smith a scientist trying desperately to find a cure while maintaining his sanity in the same way Heston had done in that film.
Obviously, die-hard fanatics of Matheson's claustrophobic and brilliant novel are not going to have warm and fuzzy feelings by the way I AM LEGEND has been amped up, even in contrast to the '71 version (let alone the Poverty-Row '64 LAST MAN ON EARTH). But Smith's performance, as he's on screen for better than three-fourths of the time, is every bit as credible (if in different ways) as Price's and Heston's in the earlier versions; and the sense of desolation in New York City creates a great deal of tension.
It may be that Matheson's book, with posited the vampire myth in scientific terms, can't really be filmed the way it should by Hollywood; these days, vampires seem to be the stuff of B-movies. That said, however, this I AM LEGEND does work well enough just the same.