He is legend; film is not

Francis Lawrence’s version of I Am Legend is the third film to be based on Richard Matheson’s popular sci-fi/horror novel about vampires terrorizing mankind’s lone survivor. Omega Man and The Last Man on Earth were the previous versions. You’d think the film actually named after the source material would have an advantage here, but no, think again.

I begin my review with Francis Lawrence’s name only so I can now refer to his credentials: the film Constantine and music videos by Britney Spears, Janet Jackson and Jennifer Lopez, three performers who have heard of “thingies with paper guts and black scribbles” but did not know they were in fact called books. So it should be no surprise that Lawrence, with screenwriters Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman, royally botch Matheson’s novel.

Before I get ahead of myself, I have to admit I’m breaking my own rules, one of them being, “Review the movie, not the book it was based on.” I’ve mentioned this rule beneath screams from readers who call to tell me that Clive Cussler and J.K. Rowling write books that are better than their film counterparts. Agreed. The book shouldn’t have to answer to the film. The film is its own entity. But in this case, the movie stops its upward accent into greatness at almost the exact moment it begins to drift from its source. Curious …

Will Smith stars as Robert Neville, apparently the last man on earth, and definitely the last man in New York City, where he drives through a weed-covered Times Square, grows corn in Central Park and hunts elk in Washington Square. And then his watch beeps and he smugly drives home to batten down the hatches and sleep in his bathtub. Smith wasn’t always the last man on earth — something we learn through periodic flashbacks with cliffhangers — but then a scientist cures cancer. Like those TV pharmaceutical ads, there are side effects to this cancer treatment: “May cause vampire or zombie effect; contact your doctor if symptoms continue longer than 4 hours.” Turns out the cure is really just a new cancer, this time with pointy fangs. And then the world falls apart.

We pick up with our hero about three years after the virus pops up and begins opening up seats for Broadway shows. Neville, somehow immune to the mutating airborne virus, wanders the streets in the day and takes shelter at night when the undead, sensitive to light and all, come out to terrorize the night. Smith, smooth as ever, plays the part as a lonely, sad man with nothing to lose except quick lines at the DVD rental counter, where he’s like a 1,000 days overdue on a copy of Shrek. Schwarzenegger was supposed to play this role years ago and it’s good he didn’t; Smith is more likeable, kind of an everyman type guy.

The first half of the movie is remarkable in the way it shows us striking imagery (an empty NYC) with Neville’s insanity-inducing isolation, which he combats by talking to his dog (the film’s co-star) and mannequins he’s named and posed in still life around the city. And notice his apartment: that’s Van Gogh’s real Starry Night hanging above the fireplace — of course he’d raid the museum to decorate his pad.

Neville also has several run-ins with the undead creatures. They mind their business in their dark hideaways as long as he minds his business in the daylight. At night the same dynamic is applied, albeit in reverse with Neville hiding out while they rule the streets. Occasionally their paths cross, though, and Neville is usually packing heat. I was a little disappointed that all the creatures were digital effects, and so agile, but they served their purpose, which was to jump out of the dark with gnashing teeth.

Where I Am Legend has an identity crisis is with the introduction of two human characters who turn up out of nowhere … and in the dark no less. Also, how did they get to Manhattan with all the bridges blown up and tunnels flooded? The movie never answers, but my guess is magic carpets.

Now, for me to go any further into detail about how and why these characters derail Legend would require me to ruin the movie and the book’s ending, and at the same time too. I don’t want to do that, even though it would feel really gratifying. Just know that the book and film endings are different, and not in good ways. (In fact, this ending is so different it completely invalidates the rather awesome title of the film.) The best thing I can compare the film/book ending to is Blade Runner. The book has the Blade Runner director’s cut ending, and the movie has the theatrical release ending. Get it now? Google it if you don’t.

The film’s finale also comes too abrupt. We’re neck-deep in Legend, kind of enjoying ourselves, and then someone pulls the plug on a very big drain and in 15 nanoseconds we’re standing there dripping thinking, “Where’d the movie go?” Not where the book went, that’s for sure.

The book’s ending -- SPOILERS ahead!
In case you don’t want to read Matheson’s book from 50+ years ago, here’s a gigantic super-spoiler. Highlight over everything south of here for the text.

In the book, Neville is not a scientist, but he does pick up some science skills from books, enough knowledge to learn that there is a very specific biological reason why the undead haunt the night like vampires. Just as he makes progress hovering over his micrscope, a woman turns up near his home in the daylight.

He trusts her at first, but then begins asking for a blood sample to see if she has the virus in her veins. Eventually she whacks him on the head and takes off in the night leaving a note that says yes, indeed, she had the virus. She also reveals that there are two breeds of vampires: those that are completely dead, and those that have the virus and its side effects but are surviving in the dark. She tells Neville that he had previously killed her family as he ventured into buildings ridding his world of the virus. Because he lost his family, they share an unspoken bond, which is probably why she's not clawing out his eyes.

Lastly she warns him to leave because they are forming a new civilization in the night and they’ll eventually come for him. Neville, accustomed to his home and routines, chooses not to leave. Sure enough, months (or maybe years) later they come and take him in the night. They tell him that he is the scourge of their lives, the myth that stalks and kills them in their sleep. And because he’s the last one left, and such a ruthless killer, he has become the legend of their new culture, as legendary as Dracula was in ours.

The final passage reintroduces the girl, who offers Neville pills that will either kill him or render him numb to the execution he surely faces. In the last graphs he swallows the pills and embraces his end as a legend. Terrific stuff.