I Am Legend

I've been looking forward to seeing I Am Legend since I first heard it was being shot. Unfortunately, Will Smith's version didn't completely live up to my expectations.

The movie is a pretty good one, if you take it on it's own merits. There's little to no swearing, nudity, excessive gore or post-modern Angst. That is not to say that this isn't a scary movie. It is, but the PG-13 rating is actually quite appropriate considering the subject matter of this film.

Surprisingly, this movie doesn't really play the "God is dead" card. While in a moment of pure frustration and anger, Dr. Neville exclaims, "There is no God!", I can safely say, he doesn't really believe it. It seems to me that Neville is a God-fearing man. I know that because we see him praying with his family and he, rightfully, blames people for the vampire-disease and the subsequent human mass-extinction. Neville also refuses to call the infected anything but human, which is an interesting twist. In the end, he tells us that he's been listening to God's voice. In addition, throughout the film, we can see graffiti scrawled on the wall that reads: "God still loves us." As pointed out over at Christianity Today,

At first, it seems this may be an ironic jab. After all, this is a dark, apocalyptic film about one man left to rot in a seemingly Godless world. But by the end, that poster seems to be a subtle thesis statement.

Toward the very end of the movie, Anna, another survivor Neville meets, insists that God told her to come to New York. "The world is quieter now," She explains. "It's easier to hear God." If you've read Richard Matheson's book (which I have positively adored for almost 20 years), you'll be wary of Anna, so I was prepared for the probability that her religion spiel was just an act. Apparently, in the movie it is not.

What the movie lacked in my estimation (again, I loved the book so I had some expectations that must be forgiven) was a true sense of loneliness. The book's main theme was that we are all really alone. Our friends, neighbors, co-workers don't really give us human contact. We are all just dutiful, lonely slaves in the Kingdom of Means. We use others and others use us. Others just need our sweat and blood, and once they've got what they want, they leave us a hollow, shambling husk. Will Smith does a pretty good job of conveying this gnawing loneliness, but the writers of the movie decided to liven up the pace by inserting the dog in at very the beginning. For some, this might be a great foil for Neville's complete emotional isolation, but not for me.

All in all, this was a good movie, but falls apart in the last act. As is required of any monster movie, machine guns and impossible stunts are absolutely required (right!?). Unfortunately, when you push the action, meaningfulness goes out the door. The themes of salvation (Neville, it might be argued, is a Jesus-figure), humanity and our struggles with emotional isolation in our modern, impersonal world are lost by the end of the movie. Even with that criticism, I can cautiously recommend this movie . . . if you can handle a few boogie men jumping out of closets at you!