Richard Matheson's novella has been filmed twice before - first in 1964 as The Last Man On Earth starring Vincent Price, and secondly and perhaps more memorably (for all the wrong reasons) in 1971 as The Omega Man with a rather bemused Charlton Heston dealing with blaxploitation vampires and a Cleopatra Jones style heroine. Now Will Smith steps up to bat and the story finally gets the kind of treatment it deserves.
From the opening reel it's evident why this version required a multi-million dollar budget. In the opening scene, Robert Neville, seemingly the only human survivor of a deadly pandemic, hunts deer from his car in a deserted New York city. This isn't computer generated. It seems the crew actually got permission to close down whole areas of the city and the effect is really quite haunting - though what effect it had upon native New Yorkers one can only guess at.
Neville is fortuitously a soldier and a scientist - pretty unlikely, I know, but you need to swallow this idea if you are to stay with the film in any way. Accompanied only by his faithful dog (surely the best animal performance since Rin Tin Tin) Neville spends his lonely days working out, foraging for food and experimenting on the Dark Seekers - the hideous, hairless creatures that the human race has devolved into, searching for the cure that will save mankind. Director Francis Lawrence has opted to make these creatures CGI creations, presumably to separate them from the lurching Dawn Of The Dead zombies with which we are by now so familiar.
The film often pushes its 15 certificate to the limit. One scene where Neville hunts through a series of darkened rooms by the light of a torch forms an eloquent plea for the installation of more absorbent seating in cinemas throughout the land, and another memorable set piece racks the suspense up to almost unbearable levels.
But it's as an examination of loneliness and alienation that I Am Legend really hits the mark and it's a hardened creature indeed who won't be reaching for the Kleenex at one particular plot point. Furthermore, the bleak conclusion of the story, faithful to Matheson's original tale is going to test the resolve of many film goers, who will feel they deserve something more uplifting than what's on offer here.
Quibbles aside, I Am Legend is well worth catching on the big screen, where those deserted cityscapes really do look astonishing.
