I am Legend

I needed to give I am Legend another chance. I had traveled to the local cinema to view the movie soon after its release. I had seen the trailers and the TV spots and it looked like a movie that would appeal to me. There’s just something about seeing urban decay [i.e. seeing what happens to modern cities after they've been abandoned for a while] and the “last man on Earth” scenario played out on the big screen that speaks to me. I hadn’t read the book before seeing the movie, a point I’m sure I will discuss later on.

The first time I saw I am Legend, I wasn’t too impressed with the movie. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. I really liked the first half of the movie, which basically depicts Robert Neville’s daily routines within New York City and how he survives day in and day out without the benefit of human contact whilst struggling to stay alive throughout the night. Again, it plays nicely into the urban decay and last man alive themes that appeal to me. I liked how Neville named mannequins and interacted with them because it not only shows how he’s trying to maintain his humanity but it also shows how one’s sanity can be strained by complete isolation. This really comes to a head when he finds “Fred” standing in front of Grand Central Station in what proves to be a dark seeker trap for him, one that is oddly reminiscent of Neville’s earlier trap for them.

The second half of the movie though [where we shift focus from Neville alone to the Anna-Ethan-Neville triangle] was the part that disappointed me. Gone were the survival dramas, the one man surviving alone mentality, to be replaced with the question of how do we maintain our humanity and our sense of society when there is no society around. Perhaps Neville’s reactions to Anna and Ethan were over the top and harsh, but how would you react if you were literally alone for three years and then suddenly confronted with human contact again, especially when that human contact is oddly reminiscent of the family you [presumably] watched die as they fled the city.

The second half seemed more contrived and more at odds with itself as a movie than the first half. I don’t know if I can place my fingers on the exact reasons why, but the first half seemed more cohesive and told a fascinating story, while the second half seemed only there to prove the versatility of mankind and the persistence of good over evil; mankind is good at heart, and that good will always prevail over the forces of darkness.

I think here is where I think the book does a better job. The book ends on a dark note: Neville is killed because he is a human, tricked by a mutating form of the vampirism that he fought for so long. He is tricked into giving information to an informant through the need for human contact, and then accepts his fate as it is given to him. While the book does give that hint of the persistence of mankind’s spirit, it does not pull deus ex machina at the end, and we are shown the [again, presumed] extinction of mankind and the emergence of its successor. One is left wondering at the fragility of man and our society, and if that is how mankind will react and collapse when presented with world-altering circumstances. You are left mourning for Neville not because he did the typical Hollywood good guy thing and sacrificed himself for the greater good [and the chance to save mankind], but because he fought the valiant fight, sought the ways to cure his fellow men from the disease that afflicted them but ultimately failed at the hands of those he was trying to aid. We mourn him not because he was a hero but because he was a martyr. The book’s ending is much more powerful in that it doesn’t exaggerate Neville’s deeds into that of sainthood, but shows that mankind is fallible and cannot solve all the world’s problems, even the ones he himself creates.

Neville in the book is more of an everyman, a simple factory worker who is propelled into mankind’s last hope quite accidentally. He teaches himself the knowledge needed to discover what happened to mankind, but it is at a drastic price to himself. Whereas in the movie, Neville is a military scientist and at the forefront of discovering a cure [even to the extent of having a fully functional and secure lab in his basement], the book Neville watches his wife and daughter succumb to the vampirism and return from the dead. We know is a simple man thrust to the forefront without the requisite skills and knowledge, and we can relate to him better because of this.

In the intervening time after I first saw the movie, I had some time to think and the movie seemed to grow on me. And then I saw Cloverfield, and in thinking about what I didn’t like in that movie [really bad dialogue, unbelievable action, unsympathetic protagonists, too much monster, not enough of what it did to NYC] it got me thinking about I am Legend and what worked well for it: great abandoned NYC vistas, great character development, believable action, a canine character that I cared about more than anyone in Cloverfield, just the right amount of monster to tease you at first but not enough to blow its was right away, and a shaky cam that is right for the scene and works well/steady cam when its right for the scene. After all, a movie that holds you interest for its duration when the first three-quarters are occupied by one single actor has got to be good.