I Am Legend, based on the Richard Matheson novel of the same name, tells the story of Robert Neville, a military scientist who is the survivor of a lethal manmade plague that has killed off most of humanity. Neville continues to live in New York City and works diligently in his private lab to find a cure. While the virus almost always kills its host, it also has the unfortunate tendency to turn a small but significant percentage of victims into your typical post-apocalyptic homicidal mutants. His only companion is the family dog and he is beginning to show the psychic trauma of three years of without human contact.
I’ve been looking forward to the this film for a while and it mostly lived up to my expectations. Will Smith gives a strong, nuanced performance as a man trying to carry on after the unimaginable has happened. The story is gripping and provides several genuinely frightening moments. But the movie does collapse towards the end, descending into hokey spiritualism and giving the viewer cause to wonder whether Neville found his science degree at the bottom of a cereal box. It’s a letdown after the virtuosity of the film’s preceding two-thirds. Still, I Am Legend is infinitely better than The Omega Man, that cheese platter starring Charlton Heston.
