As research scientist Robert Neville, the last man left on a disease-ravaged planet, Will Smith hunts deer in New York City’s deserted Times Square, fires live ammunition while standing at the entrance to a vacated Grand Central Station, and tees golf balls off an empty aircraft carrier. We’re supposed to feel the weight of Neville’s isolation – and later, the fear of potential attack from dangers that lurk in the shadows – but all I could think is, “How’d they get these amazing shots?”
Francis Lawrence’s intelligent concept thriller “I Am Legend” is the third film adaptation of Richard Matheson’s short story about the lone survivor of a viral plague that kills 90 percent of the world’s population and transforms the remaining humans into sunlight-fearing vampire creatures. Smith assumes the title role and – in a tweak made by screenwriters Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman – shoulders partial blame for the outbreak. A Time Magazine cover attached to Neville’s refrigerator hints at the hero’s past. An army colonel and virologist, Neville released the mutating, airborne specimen that has devastated society. He stays behind in a vampire-ridden Manhattan not out of fear (as in Matheson’s book) but out of obligation. “I can still fix this,” he says to his canine companion, Sam, though we hear his conviction fading.
The casting of Smith is inspired. He has carried blockbuster popcorn films and anchored emotional dramas but has yet to combine both talents in the same film until now. Lawrence retains the psychologically downbeat mood of Matheson’s “Legend,” and Smith complements his bulky frame with a brawny performance that reminds us how he has matured as an actor. Lawrence doesn’t wholeheartedly commit – his weak ending succumbs to cheap explosions and a re-imagined coda that pales in comparison to the book’s final turn. But “Legend” musters passable creature effects as it sneaks in a few well-earned jolts that almost (but never completely) distract from those impressive shots of an empty metropolis. Seriously, how did they do that?
