Movie Review: "I Am Legend"
Category: Movies...
Posted Friday, December 14, 2007 at 06:07 PM [GMT-6]

As everyone surely knows, I Am Legend is a remake of The Omega Man, a 35 year old movie starring Charlton Heston. This time around, Will Smith takes the lead as the last [normal] human being on the planet, following the spread of a virus that apparently cured cancer but had the rather unfortunate side effect of turning folks into rabid cannibals with sensitive skin.

While Smith turns in his usual charismatic and nuanced performance (he plays a very convincing "frightened") , I Am Legend will, ultimately, prove not to be. It's an acceptable horror movie (something the original -- which I believe was itself a remake) failed to achieve, and it never sinks into the same depths of preachiness or saccharin-sweet background music of The Omega Man. On the other hand, it doesn't take us anywhere new; it just spruces up the original scenery a bit.

Here are some random observations from the movie:

***SPOILER ALERT: BIG TIME SPOILERS AHEAD – YOU ARE WARNED!***

• This is just a test random comment in case you couldn't avert your eyes in time.


• Will Smith's dog is wonderful. She has an acting range that exceeds many of today's higher paid human counterparts.


• The dog dies. In the worst possible way (well, if you're a dog lover, you'll think it is). Fortunately, it's not graphic.


• The zombies are truly horrible creatures, unlike the albinos with bad attitudes in the original. They also are obviously CGI'd, and share some odd characteristics with the mummies from The Mummy film franchise – one of which is the ability to bellow unnaturally loudly while opening their mouths really wide. What's with that?


• Also, after three years of being mindless cannibals, they still wore clothes. Well, this is a PG-13 movie, after all.


• We never learn why rats and dogs are susceptible to infection, but deer and lions are not. I'm haunted by that mystery.


• Equally odd is that infected humans and infected dogs continue to have the same cooperative relationship as their uninfected counterparts.


• Will bacon really last three years?

At just over 100 minutes, I Am Legend moves at a brisk pace. It's never boring. But, in the end, it's not very satisfying either. This is one instance where the original needed more than just updating; it could have done with a makeover.