Watching deers being chased down Broadway and coming face to face with a pride of lions at Times Square leaves you with a weird feeling. With grass covering the criss-crossing streets and avenues of Manhattan, the ground zero in the movie, one feels breathless at desolate high-rises of the city that we know as one that never sleeps.
The hunter is Robert Neville,circa 2012, the 'saviour' doctor-scientist who refused to leave the quarantined isle for larger than life reasons. He, along with his dog, Samantha, and a few loaded cars tries to maintain sanity in the face of devastation and isolation three years into the aftermath of an experiment-gone-wrong, which blotted out 99% of the human population, all the while carrying out tests to find a cure for the infection caused by KV.
The imagery is no doubt computer generated (CGI) and mostly great, except may be the 'infected human beings' or 'creatures'. The images instantly remind you of the hyper-aggressive men and women of 'The 28' movies (find more here).But this is where the similarity ends. While the goriness of The 28- creatures was a result of the immense effort of make-up artists, the creatures of 'I am Legend' are plastic and viewers can see through the CGI.
The story and the screenplay do not dissapoint you. Pyrotechnics (CGI?) are breathtaking. Keeping you on the edge of your seats, the movie has several chilling moments. Will Smith's potrayal of Neville, especially one dealing with personal loss is commendable. The emotions are touching and the horror real. Learning to create a make-believe 'normal' life, Neville, seemingly starts losing it towards the turning point of the movie. Smith's performance parallels that of Tom Hanks in Castaway. The two roles are collimate in the demands they make on the actors. If there was any doubt before, this movie should put Smith up there in the league of top drama actors. This is a Will Smith movie to the last shot.
The movie is a metaphor for the perils of indiscriminate genetic engineering and of 'man playing god'. The mistaken success of one doctor leading to a legendary quest for finding a cure for it by another makes the movie watchable for the indomitable human spirit the picture encapsulates. The climactic plea 'I can cure you, just let me help you' falling on deaf ears might as well represent the reality of today where man torn between ethics and technological prowess is underestimating downstream impact of his actions on the earth and life on it. There is bound to be some collateral dammage when one man risks his life in consummation of his quest for discovering and defending the cure. It makes him a legend.
The movie is worth a watch. I blame it on the New year's eve that the movie hall was not full(85% occupancy). I see little reason why people with a stomach for gore and scare should not like it. For the imagery and the theme, the movie has been rated A.
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