Review by Peter Veugelaers ©2008:

  I Am Legend is New York in 2012, eleven years after 9/11. Future fear as a symbol. It’s the cutting out of Batman and Superman, heroes who save, images of saviour-figures which get a look in the first ten minutes. How do we view the future threat; Legend only relates to terrorism in a metaphorical sense, as in man’s inhumanity to man, and the hero struggles determinedly to face terror and win.

 Legend starts out portraying life as a form of terror when ghoul-like faces on dematerialised bodies, in-human vampire-type and physically elevated hunting machines, scouring one another because of a virus, supposed to cure cancer, is out of control. It’s been similarly done before in the same year: 28 Weeks Later and 2003’s 28 Days Later. Like a virus making humans into man-eating parasites, devoid of thinking, then metaphorically, a viral strand of depravity can even make them into immoral monsters.

 Scientist Robert Neville hides away in his house at night when, like people turning into werewolves, they come, which has seen days in movie lore with The Wolf. Neville curls up with his dog in the bathtub and hears the pattering of feet on his roof. It’s them. People become enemies. His dog is his only friend. It’s the same in real life where people seem to be the opposition and animals are friendlier. The dog is Neville’s conversation partner. Neville pops out to confront the beasts with a shot gun. There’s one genuinely suspenseful scene when Neville is trapped by one and night is dawning when the beast lets the dogs out to eat him. Getaway, quick. It’s the stuff of nightmares.

 A future like this has to be taken with a willing suspension of disbelief. I suspect most future scapes at the movies are to be taken with a pinch of salt. Think Blade Runner, for example, which held up a crystal ball to a rather convoluted Los Angeles.

 The futuristic premise is unbelievable: A virus to cure cancer causes a reverse effect, out-breaks, and kills off most of the world’s population turning people into pseudo-vampires who eat their victims. Scientist Robert Neville (Will Smith) is immune and survives in New York City. He attempts to use his blood as a cure.

 This could have been about how the scientist tries to kill not only the beasts around him, but also the beast in his own nature. It could mean that instead of commenting on Neville’s masculinity, which serves as an advert for family friendly viewing by “hiring out” Shrek instead of the possibility of porn, he would have gone for the porn. But that doesn’t appear like Will Smith in a mainstream blockbuster movie which isn’t that horrific, graphic, or intense.

 There is some depth, which makes for nice God-like implications. Neville later asks: is God in all of this? Instead he’s blunter and more direct but pleasantly so as any blockbuster would be.

 There’s a not so unexpected turn of events which contrasts Neville’s cynicism. The alienation and symbolic inhumanity is contrasted with the kindly gestures of hope in the community, church, and trust in God. Man is responsible, scientists are responsible. It can be fixed. It is like the movie is creating a picture of God mysteriously pulling the strings in the background of the story. Even though humanity is distant from God, the Almighty One has planned ahead of us and can be trusted. God can use the goodness in finite humans, like Neville’s noble scientist, to re-create a better world. It’s hopeful in that God isn’t destroying humanity; it takes the positive. Whether that’s kosher biblically, in a prophetical kind of way, is debatable.  

 But it is the humanising of Neville by Smith, rather than the subtle and heady spiritualising, which somehow connects at a deeper level. For a start, it has longer screen time. Smith, in spite of all the purity of his Hitch/The Pursuit of Happiness persona, is convincing as he learns how to deal with the human issues of isolation, alienation, and loneliness. It’s a pity Neville doesn’t encounter God in his predicament. It might have been interesting and not in the video movie evangelistic sense but out of a genuine sheer desperation and uncanny timing and placement. But God is not absent, according to the movie. Still it’s the struggle which Smith turns into a touching episode and makes better than the spectacle and special effects in this big budget High Concept blockbuster.