I Am Legend (2007)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Francis Lawrence

Writers (WGA):

Mark Protosevich (screenplay) and
Akiva Goldsman (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

14 December 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

The last man on earth is not alone

Plot:

Years after a plague kills most of humanity and transforms the rest into monsters, the sole survivor in New York City struggles valiantly to find a cure.

Plot Keywords:

Survivor | Cure | New York City | Blood | Scientist

Awards:

7 wins & 17 nominations

Cast

Will Smith	...	Robert Neville
Alice Braga	...	Anna
Charlie Tahan	...	Ethan
Salli Richardson-Whitfield	...	Zoe (as Salli Richardson)
Willow Smith	...	Marley
Darrell Foster	...	Mike - Military Escort
April Grace	...	TV Personality
Dash Mihok	...	Alpha Male
Joanna Numata	...	Alpha Female
Abbey	...	Sam
Kona	...	Sam
Samuel Glen	...	Military Driver - Jay
James Michael McCauley	...	Male Evacuee (as James McCauley)
Marin Ireland	...	Woman Evacuee
Pedro Mojica	...	Sergeant

Also Known As:

I Am Legend: The IMAX Experience (USA) (IMAX version)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence.

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS | Dolby Digital | DTS

Certification:

South Korea:12 | Ireland:15A | Finland:K-15 | UK:15 | Malaysia:U | Singapore:PG | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | Hong Kong:IIB | Taiwan:PG-12 | France:Unrated | Australia:M | Norway:15 | Philippines:PG-13 (MTRCB) | Brazil:14 | Portugal:M/12 | Argentina:16 | Slovakia:12 | Czech Republic:12 | USA:PG-13 (certificate #43988) | Denmark:11 | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:14A (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario) | Sweden:15 | Germany:16 | Australia:MA (DVD) | New Zealand:M | Venezuela:PG-13 | Peru:14 | Netherlands:12 | South Africa:13V | Austria:14 | Japan:U | India:A (cinema release) | Iceland:14

Filming Locations:

Brooklyn Bridge, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Guillermo del Toro, Will Smith's first choice, turned down the offer to direct this film so he could make Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008).

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: Shortly after Neville finishes quoting 'Shrek', a shot of the lounge as he walks into the kitchen reveals that the audio from the film does not actually match the visual images.

Quotes:

[first lines]
TV Personality: The world of medicine has seen its share of miracle cures, from the polio vaccine to heart transplants. But all past achievements may pale in comparison to the work of Dr. Alice Krippin. Thank you so much for joining us this morning.
Dr. Alice Krippin: Not at all.
TV Personality: So, Dr. Krippin, give it to me in a nutshell.
Dr. Alice Krippin: Well, the premise is quite simple - um, take something designed by nature and reprogram it to make it work for the body rather than against it.
TV Personality: You're talking about a virus?
Dr. Alice Krippin: Indeed, yes. In this case the measles, um, virus which has been engineered at a genetic level to be helpful rather than harmful. Um, I find the best way to describe it is if you can... if you can imagine your body as a highway, and you picture the virus as a very fast car, um, being driven by a very bad man. Imagine the damage that car can cause. Then if you replace that man with a cop... the picture changes. And that's essentially what we've done.
TV Personality: And how many people have you treated so far?
Dr. Alice Krippin: Well, we've had ten thousand and nine clinical trials in humans so far.
TV Personality: And how many are cancer-free?
[...]

Movie Connections:

References Goodfellas (1990)

Soundtrack:

Stir It Up

Gut-wrenching movie full of adventure and heart

I just saw this movie today, the day it opened here. And was deeply, deeply moved.

I've got to start with the scenes of a deserted New York City post-apocalypse. These were so very, very moving; and very, very convincing. The clips in the trailers for the movie were good, but you really have to see the full panoply of close-up shots, distance shots, etc to really appreciate the sheer scale of what this movie is depicting. There's something of On the Beach and Resident Evil and of any number of disaster movies and zombie movies here. But none of them do justice to the New York depicted here. This is a New York City we see large-scale and micro-scale in order to show us the environment in which the main character is acting.

And Will Smith is simply brilliant as the sole survivor, Robert Neville. Will delivers movingly and convincingly on a script that really focuses on giving us a picture of "what it would be like" ... to be the last man on earth, living off the land in NYC. This is the real strength of this movie: there's really not a lot of blood or gore or zombie scenes at all. Yet I was riveted as Robert goes through his "typical days" in NYC. Every moment was full of pathos and full of menace, too. And occasionally we got some relief from Smith's trademark humor that blended seamlessly with the rest of his performance to give us "what it would be like" with a powerful delivery that just leaves me almost breathless.

There's an effective use of flashbacks that partly tell us the story of how we got to where we're at in this grim New York City; and the flashbacks also serve to give us an overwhelming contrast between Life Before and Life After the apocalyptic disaster wiped out the city. Yet use of flashback was sparing, which I found all the more effective.

Cinematography was excellent throughout, the storyline and script are brilliant, the use of a dog, Samantha, as a key actor was perfect to show us both Robert as companion and Robert as lonely, isolated survivor.

I won't give away the ending, but think it was satisfying as far as it goes, but not nearly as appealing, from my angle, as the foregoing material. That brings up my one complaint: the title. By the end of the movie, we have some sense of the meaning of the title. Yet it still seems to me to feel cheesy and really unworthy of the movie.

But that's a minor plaint. If you haven't seen this movie, and would enjoy seeing a really powerful story about a survivor in post-apocalypse New York City, hey, go check out this flick. It's really worth it.