I had the pleasure of meeting I Am Legend director Francis Lawrence in New York a few days ago. He seemed to be a very down-to-earth kinda guy - easily the nicest director of the few I\'ve met in person, and he even signed my Legend novel [natch]. He also was unique in that, while he hyped his second film, he made vocal his thoughts on his first, Constantine. If you saw that film, you probably have the same view of it as Francis does. It\'s unlike most fresh successes to publicly admit a freshman failure, and it\'s an admirable trait. He seemed to be confident in his sophomore effort, but should he have been? Yeah, I\'d say so, definitely.
I Am Legend is based upon the 1950\'s Richard Matheson novel of the same name - in essence, Robert Neville is the last non-infected, non-dead and non-reanimated human on the planet. It\'s the tale of his struggle to maintain some sort of order and as much sanity as he can. It\'s a great story, and one that many were upset to hear had been altered greatly for a third screen adaptation. I was admittedly one of them, but is it not the duty of the creative artist to interpret a work for adaptation in his own way? If they just put the book up there on the screen, word for word, with no significant creative design, what would be the point? I ask you, would you even want an exact duplication of the novel you know and love? Wouldn\'t it just break apart your long-standing interpretation of the story and the images? Do you think if I remade movies in this manner, they would be successful? They remade Psycho that way, you know - frame for frame, shot for shot, an exact duplication. In essence, you get the same movie in color with inferior actors (Vince Vaughn, please don\'t hate me).
Back to why Legend works, though: It\'s a well-shot, well-scripted and immaculately designed piece. The vision of the New York that\'s been "Taken back by nature," as Lawrence puts it, is shocking while being stimulating on an intellectual basis. The manner in which the areas are shot indicates that we\'re seeing things from Neville\'s perspective - this is what the world is, it\'s accepted as reality, and there\'s really nothing Neville can do to change it. So, from a technical standpoint, Mr. Lawrence, your film is a success on a grand level.
Real credit has to be given to Will Smith, though. His Neville has layers, like onions (Onions have layers.) And don\'t tell me that cakes have layers, because it is irrelevant; Neville is not like cakes. Neville constantly skates on the thin ice of sanity, raising his temper to unhealthy levels at a whim and showing clear signs of cracking mental stability. We see the world mostly as he sees it, but while we\'re focusing on him, we see such sincerity of character. Such broken hope, such thick, meaty sadness in his eyes that - keeping in mind it\'s a one-man show most of the way - it\'d be a sham if he weren\'t nominated for a third Academy Award. This is the type of performance that makes or breaks a film, and between this and last year\'s The Pursuit of Happyness, Will Smith has demonstrated that he is a superb actor, and that he can make films. He can do comedy, sure, but with this performance, he\'s an auteur in my book.
There\'s a lot I want to say about this film, but I tend to think detailing too much of a work from various points in its story detracts from the natural impact of the story\'s progression. This is why you know there\'s still a scare coming when you\'re watching a movie and haven\'t seen all the killings from the trailer yet - it\'s why the back of the box can end with "... which all culminates in a shocker of an ending you won\'t expect at all!" Sometimes not knowing if there is a twist is what makes the twist so effective.
In compliance with this little philosophy of mine, I\'ll refrain from noting any more specific events. Instead, I\'ll confirm that, yes, the ending of the movie is different from the ending of the book. The ending they chose still works quite well, and fits the titular concept in a different, though still perfectly fine manner. The final passages of the novel are among the finest I\'ve read in my life, phrased with such beauty and intellect that it makes the rest of the very very good novel fade from your mind. I\'ll never stop loving the novel, and in regards to the film, it\'s better than you might think - a lot better.
"I Am Legend" opens December 14, 2007 and is rated PG13. Horror. Directed by Francis Lawrence. Written by Mark Protosevich, Akiva Goldsman, Richard Matheson (novel). Starring Alice Braga, Dash Mihok, Will Smith, Charlie Tahan.
