The Art of Killing Things: Film Review

Last summer, as blockbuster after blockbuster rolled across the screen, I remember contemplating that, while some of these movies were certainly watchable, none of them possessed a charismatic lead of the same caliber that existed in the past. The only exception was Bruce Willis, who, in his mid-fifties, still inhabits the screen and carries the picture in his Die Hard series. But he does not have the same existential individualism, the imminent invincibility, of a John Wayne or a Clint Eastwood. Furthermore, Bruce Willis, like Harrison Ford, is an actor entering into the twilight of his career, though, with any luck, he still has one or two Die Hard's left in him. A month before, I had heard that a studio (I forget which) was planning another installment of Lethal Weapon, but that the plan fell through after Mel Gibson said he did not intend to return to acting. There are certainly some terrific actors who work within the action genre, the latest being Christian Bale in Batman Begins, but most younger actors look to expand their horizons beyond this genre and take on more acclaimed, if not more challenging, roles. (A word to the wise: if you haven't seen Christian Bale in Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn, endeavor to do so.) All this is to say that, by the end of the summer, I had come to the conclusion that the conventional American action hero was dead and would be replaced by more human and fragile heroes (or protagonists, at least) like Jason Bourne.

I was wrong. There is one actor left who is both fully American and primarily an action star; that is Will Smith. Perhaps the possibility of this did not occur to me because I had not seen most of the action movies in which he has appeared (I never went to I, Robot) and those that I had seen convinced me that he was merely a B-actor wandering around in Hollywood's wild, wild west. Upon seeing I Am Legend, I recant.

Don't get me wrong; this is not the best movie of the year. If you haven't seen it in the multiplex, I would definitely recommend going, but it is not as essential that you see this as others (No Country for Old Men, for example). Nevertheless, Will Smith does do an outstanding job playing "the only living boy in New York."

The premise for the movie is almost Gothic: a disease has killed off 90% of the worlds population and left the majority of the rest (along with a number of animals) as cannibalizing mutants who scrounge around at night in search of human flesh. This leaves the Smith's hero, Dr. Neville, the day to scrounge around with his loyal German shepherd in search of a cure. There are also other things which must be attended to: plants that need watering, manikins that need talking to, and deer that need chasing. It is during these moments of solitude when Smith is at his best in this film, and this film is as good as he has ever been. Telling a story where only one man speaks for the first half is obviously problematic, but Mr. Smith is such a lively and endearing performer that the audience almost forgets that he is all by himself. Rest assured that, while he is alone, you are unlikely to be bored.

Mr. Smith is probably the movie's best feature. This is not to say that Francis Lawrence, the director, is a hack. On the contrary, he does more than a passable job with his jiggling, hand-held cameras, especially in darkened corridors and opaque warehouses; his style in this movie leaves distinguishes his work from other directors who might merely have done something manageable. But, like Alfred Hitchcock, the father of all horror directors, he at his best before the monster is revealed and he reveals his monsters too early. The zombies that appear in I Am Legend are perhaps the most underwhelming in film history. They are about as realistic as a zombie that you might shoot in a video-game.

Also, Mr. Lawrence's style, while perfect for reflecting Neville's loneliness, is less apt for dealing with more than one person. When Neville finally meets an uninfected girl (played by Alice Braga) and her younger brother, Mr. Lawrence and his screenwriters--Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman--fail to develop their relationship. Given my limited knowledge of the novel on which this is based, I know that this is consistent with the 1971 version "The Omega Man" in which Charlton Heston had Smith's role and Rosalind Cash played his love interest; this is to say that both films involve interracial friendship. It would have been more interesting if Neville and his potential love interest had decided to found an orderly utopia in the midst of the chaos. It would almost be a Walkabout sort of a moment. This makes it all the more unfortunate that their relationship is never anything more than platonic. At one point in the film, an uninfected refugee who saves Neville's life says something like "you're not yet used to people" and it is unclear to me whether she is referring to the protagonist or the director.

In spite of these drawbacks, I Am Legend is a movie worth watching and, even if you do not care for the narrative itself, seeing Mr. Smith carry the film is rewarding enough. There great actors who can confidently play action heroes, but there are not so many action heroes who are also great actors. Mr. Smith is an exception and never more so than in I Am Legend.