Philadelphia Weekly

There's an incredible sense of loneliness and despair in director Francis Lawrence's I Am Legend, which for a good portion of its running time proves to be a surprisingly hard-edged and intelligent science- fiction thriller--certainly a good deal sharper than one might expect from a holiday blockbuster starring the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

This is the third big-screen adaptation of Richard Matheson's cult fave 1954 novel, and we've walked these empty streets before--not just with Vincent Price in 1964's The Last Man on Earth, but more memorably alongside Charlton Heston in that bonkers 1971 cheese-fest The Omega Man. Devoted fans are already setting the Internet ablaze, debating and dissecting this new film's diversions from Matheson's sacred text.

This all strikes me as a bit silly, as no mega-budget movie from a major studio would ever dare stick with that grim original ending. I Am Legend was always destined to cop-out--the only questions being when and where, and would a happy ending ruin everything that came before?

So powerful are these opening reels, not even the lamentable late-game Hollywood script-doctoring can shatter I Am Legend's harsh, unsettling spell. Will Smith stars as Robert Neville, apparently the sole survivor of a vicious virus that's transformed the rest of the population into ghost-white, drooling vampire-esque creatures. (The movie's greatest gag is that this all started with a big pharma-sponsored, virally based cancer vaccine. A televised prologue features a doctor smugly announcing: "Yes, we've cured cancer." Lawrence immediately smash-cuts to a decimated Manhattan, three years later.)

Neville now has the island to himself, and it's almost impossible to describe the eerie effect conjured by the endless hushed wide-shots of this barren, ruined cityscape. Grass has begun to spring up between pavement cracks and animals roam freely through Times Square. There's barely a hint of a musical score--just haunting silences and faint, distant birdsong.

I Am Legend first follows Smith's scientist through a typical weekday, watching tape-recorded Today show broadcasts, hunting deer on Broadway, chatting animatedly with the store mannequins he's arranged around his favorite haunts, before finally retiring to his fortified Greenwich Village apartment at sundown.

You see, they only come out at night.

They're called dark-seekers, and they used to be human. Once a military virologist, Neville's still trying his damndest to find a cure, but these nasty beasts look like they're starting to evolve, turning some of the good doctor's best tricks against him. Time is running out.

The first two-thirds of I Am Legend are an exercise in pure craftsmanship. Lawrence, a music video director who made his feature debut with the nifty Keanu Reeves comic adaptation Constantine a couple years back, has a sharp eye for composition, as well as one trait rarely found in contemporary action directors: patience. As Smith has nobody he can talk to, save for a few mannequins and his trusty dog Samantha, a hefty amount of exposition must be conveyed in strictly visual terms.

It's refreshing to bask in the quiet city, watching Neville go about his business without some sort of narration track yammering away, describing what you're looking at. How flattering that the movie assumes we're smart enough to put everything together on our own, albeit with the aid of some brief, nightmarish flashbacks to the night Manhattan was evacuated, parceling out the back-story in slow, satisfying bursts.

Will Smith's tiresome cock-of-the-walk posturing is dialed down quite nicely here. He's less preening and more vulnerable than usual, even though we probably could've done without the (presumably contractually obligated) fetishistic shots of his glistening, ripped torso. It's a bit difficult to reconcile the Stallone-ish workout montage with the whole "scientist" angle.

And as for that ending ... sigh. I Am Legend is so good for so long, and Lawrence so adept at dragging out the tension of ingeniously devised, small-scaled suspense sequences, not even a massive flurry of explosions, fake-looking CGI and treacly Hollywood nonsense can undo the goodwill. Two thirds of a great movie is better than nothing.

I Am Legend
B
Director: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Will Smith
Opens Fri., Dec. 14