I Am Legend

Because I grew up in Manhattan, between the Empire State Building and what used to be the World Trade Center, I frequently have the privilege of sitting down at a movie theater and watching my home town blown up, inundated by the Atlantic Ocean, frozen solid among walls of ice, or, in the case of I Am Legend, merely atrophied into semi-wilderness and haunted by formerly-human ghouls afflicted with viral plague. I’ll never be convinced the original reason to keep destroying Manhattan isn’t that the rest of the country gets its jollies by watching, as Woody Allen so aptly put it, left-wing, communist, Jewish homosexual pornographers finally get their due.

But this equation, for obvious reasons, has changed, and it’s pretty clear that purveyors of pulp cannot resist the obvious ploy of tapping into the barely submerged (and in NYC, omnipresent) fear sown by the events of September 11th. After all, these days, how hard is it to elicit a visceral response to images of teeming masses of panicked Manhattanites taking time out from slurping Frappacinos to run for their lives? These films used to be fun, what with studios pouring tens of millions of dollars into depictions of the Statue of Liberty under water or the Manhattan skyline re-designed by extraterrestrials. But what used to be a level of destruction only imaginable by CGI technicians is now all too easily conjured up by anyone owning a TV from 9/11 on. Where our movie heroes used to battle monstrous terrors with plucky insouciance, now they evince a fear so palpable it's almost difficult to watch. For before-and-after examples, observe Will Smith's curmudgeonly do-gooder in Independence Day and the hyperventilating, fear-riddled character he at times portrays here. Yep, it's all about the fear --  read terror -- read terrorism. 

I first noticed a change of tone in the apocalypse now genre in Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, an effective study in raw panic. In that film, Tom Cruise eschewed his usual bluff and smarmy persona for that of a stunned parent confronting something previously unthinkable. Spielberg traded on September 11th imagery shamelessly, and calling that manipulation reprehensible may not be far wrong. On the other hand, hasn't sci/fi always been about sublimating the collective terror-of-the-times into fantasy? Because it's a lot easier to watch radiation-spawned Godzilla and Mothra go at it than it is to take in a documentary on the effects of Hiroshima.

In I Am Legend, director Francis Lawrence taps into latent 9/11 trauma by cultivating a somber mood and a persistent sense of loss, puncuated, natch, by spurts of explosive action. Another strategy he employs may be equally below-the-belt: that of focusing on Will Smith’s relationship with his dog – his last link to a vanished life and his only company in a city full of zombies. Smith is a thoroughly likable screen presence, anyway, but is there anyone who can watch a macho guy like him lovingly care for his pooch and not be moved to feelings of apotheosis? Smith also graduates from his primary role as physical specimen capable of outrunning aliens and robots to that of all-around superman -- he's buff and a genius researcher and a humanitarian military officer, as well as the last best hope for saving the human race. (He also lives in one of those brownstones right off Washington Square Park – how he got NYU to cough up that piece of real estate ranks right up there with outwitting mutants.) Smith's not what I’d call an electric actor -- his big-time bankability among white audiences lies in an almost total lack of edginess and a well-honed affability, sort of like a bad-ass Tom Hanks, or a more polished Barack Obama. But he's still cool.

This is a good film of its kind, and it features some economical storytelling. I especially liked the placement, without verbal allusion, of Van Gogh ‘s  “Starry Night”  on Smith's condo wall; he's obviously taken the opportunity to save/plunder a little something from MOMA before one of the devolved masses tries to eat it. One major break in realism (aside from the plague-riddled zombies): A broadcast supposedly occuring in 2008 shows Katie Couric still hosting the "Today Show." Dudes, talk about breaking the spell! I was forced to improvise my own backstory in which the current CBS anchorwoman is forced into her old job due to poor ratings.

A larger problem occurs about 3/4 of the way in, when an annoying French woman and her son materialize. Out of nowhere, the woman starts talking about God, introducing a ridiculously contrived religious argument. I swear, ever since that Passion of the Christ bonanza, Hollywood is looking for any opportunity to salt its product with religious nonsense. And now that The Golden Compass has flopped, things will probably only get worse.

But in general, I think all this post-September 11th seriousness actually makes for better movies. Personally, I like my sci-fi minus the levity; I’m the only person I know who thinks the latter round of Star Wars flicks superior to the originals, with those lame fucking robots kvetching and bleeping all over the place. After all, it’s a lot easier to suspend disbelief when a city-destroying threat induces even tough guys to crap their pants, rather than ham it up with jokey false bravado like James Bond whipping out  puns. Still, if some people take offense at this latest exploitaton of our long national nightmare, I'll understand. Because in these stories, in the end, we always win. The outcome in real life is much less assured.

• More Legend reviews
• I Am Legend Freaked Me Out (Sara Vilkomerson, NY Observer)
• Will Smith (Richard Schickel, Time)

p.s. - Next up in the destroy-all-boroughs genre -- Cloverfield.