‘Legend’ rides on
the talents of Will Smith

At the Movies
By Senitra Horbrook

Will Smith is the perfect actor to introduce I Am Legend to a new generation of moviegoers who (like me) have never seen Charlton Heston in The Omega Man in 1971 or Vincent Price in the original I Am Legend in 1964.
Smith has the range as an actor, evidenced by his Academy Award nominations in Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness. He also is a big box-office draw in action movies, which we’ve seen with his presence Men in Black and Independence Day.
Based on Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel, I Am Legend is about the seemingly sole survivor of a man-made virus. That virus originally was hailed as the cure for cancer, but in the year 2009, it turns out that cure creates a virus that kills much of the population and turns the rest into nocturnal, zombie-like Dark Seekers.
Robert Neville (Smith) is a military scientist who is somehow immune to the virus and the only human left in New York City. For three years after, he works tirelessly to find a cure to the man-made virus by testing his blood on a sedated Dark Seeker. After getting attacked by the cannibalistic zombies, Neville is rescued by a woman and her son, who are convinced there is a survivor colony with other immune people in Vermont. The final third of the film, including the ending, will probably be what people talk about the most.
Casting of the lead actor to play Neville was crucial because he spends a huge chunk of the movie either talking to himself or his adorable German shepherd. Smith is amusing at times (he talks to the mannequins in a record store and even tries to get a date with a one), but he also really seems to put his heart and soul into being the last man on Earth.
During the day, Neville drives around the city, walks the streets with a machine gun and waits at a pier to see if anyone will meet him there in response to his daily radio announcement to find survivors. We also get to see Smith’s well-chiseled physique as he exercises every day. At night, Neville barricades himself at home, away from the Dark Seekers, who get hungry when darkness falls. This is when we see his flashbacks of the last time he saw his wife (Salli Richardson) and daughter (played by Smith’s real-life daughter, Willow Smith).
It has been reported that Smith studied Tom Hanks’ role in Cast Away while preparing for I Am Legend. In Cast Away, Hanks spends much of the movie stranded on an island and interacting with a volleyball. In I Am Legend, Smith’s main interaction is with his dog Sam. (Just a warning: Prepare yourself for one particularly heart-wrenching scene between Neville and Sam.)
Those zombies are creepy creatures, but the film errs in using computer-generated images for the Dark Seekers. Real actors in loads of makeup would have made it feel more believable and added a scarier aspect. The sights of a deserted and desolate-looking New York City are astounding and do help compensate for that decision to go with high-tech zombies. It is obvious that director Francis Lawrence paid careful attention to every detail when it came to setting the scene.
I Am Legend is both eerie and entertaining. The thought of The Fresh Prince taking on blood-sucking zombies is quite comical, but Will Smith does it with such sincerity that he makes I Am Legend, well, sort of legendary. ••
Movie Grade: B+