I am Legend

Okay, I haven’t read the book. I haven’t seen the entire The Omega Man with Charlton Heston in 1971 and have only seen clips of The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price from 1964. I did see Night of the Comet in the theatre and saw the Australian film The Quiet Earth on Superchannel – both of which I liked.

That said, we did see the Will Smith movie I Am Legend last night at Silver City and I believe that we did like it. It’s being promoted as an action film and it really isn’t. They gloss over the technology of the virus so it doesn’t get caught up on its own pseudo-science like some of the science-based movies do (like The Core). They have some nice topical phrases like “jumped species” that hint of the impending avian flu.

It dealt a bit more with the introspective part of being the only person around and keeping up a routine. I’ve been told it’s part of the book, but the military scientist rings a bit odd. Shan had more issues with the degenerates. We were okay with their look and the CG didn’t cause us any trouble. The only this was the lack of damage they seemed to inflict upon themselves and their robustness after the undetermined time. We can understand that they might be able to do some incredible things in their condition with ignoring pain and damage to themselves but that they seemed a bit invulnerable. The one scene where the leader repeatedly smashes his face into the glass should have smashed his nose and cut up his forehead at the least.

Plus at the end, the girl might want to think about carrying the vial in a container or box in case she slips and drops it.

All in all, it was a good film. It is definitely not an action film, but it does have enough action in it to drive along the otherwise dry story.