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REVIEWS

I Am Legend

BETHANY HALFORD, C&EN WASHINGTON, D.C.

poster In sci-fi thrillers, scientists seldom get to be the center of attention. Rather, they’re usually geeky supporting characters, appearing quickly on screen to deliver a crucial plot point and then being summarily bumped off by the zombies, aliens, psychopaths, or creepy-crawlies that they’ve likely had a hand in creating. But in “I Am Legend,” a scientist gets to take center stage.

As far as he knows, virologist Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the last living man on Earth. Consequently, “I Am Legend” is essentially a one-man show, following the scientist as he spends his days in Manhattan with his dog, Sam, as his only companion. When he’s not hunting wild deer that roam the island, scavenging canned goods, or working out, Neville is locked away in his basement lab. He’s trying desperately to find a cure for a virus that was supposed to cure cancer but instead wiped out 90% of the world’s population and turned almost everyone else into light-sensitive, hyperaggressive mutants. Neville possesses a rare immunity to the virus, and as a scientist, he’s humanity’s last hope.

Although Reel Science is always wary of giving credence to nightmarish, humanity-destroying scenarios, the filmmakers of “I Am Legend” deserve a little credit. Pandemic viruses certainly rank high on the list of plausible disasters. The Black Death is supposed to have wiped out one-third of Europe’s population in the 1300s, and more recently, the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918–19 killed at least 25 million people worldwide.

Director Francis Lawrence, Smith, and the film’s producers visited the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention to learn about viruses, quarantines, and to vet possible scenarios with CDC’s experts. “Our scientists gave their educated opinions on whether the scenarios were plausible,” CDC’s Varian C. Brandon tells Reel Science. “It was obvious this group had done their homework by the questions they asked.”

A little more dubious is a virus that gives the infected superhuman strength and a Spiderman-like ability to scale buildings. Sure, these monsters let the filmmakers reach into their bag of computer-generated tricks to make the audience squirm, but ultimately, it’s a cop out. The truly terrifying portrait “I Am Legend” presents is life as the last surviving human being.

To that end, Smith’s portrayal is dead on. With his isolation eating away at him, Neville immerses himself in his research. As a scientist on the verge of madness, his performance rings true. He dispassionately hunts the infected mutants for subjects in his “human trials.” He believes to the point of irrationality that he can still save the world.

Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel “I Am Legend” has been adapted for the big screen twice before—in 1964 as “The Last Man on Earth,” starring Vincent Price, and in 1971 as “The Omega Man,” starring Charlton Heston. If Lawrence’s version succeeds as a thriller where others have failed as merely schlocky sci-fi, it’s not because of its cheap B-movie thrills. It’s because of Smith and his taut depiction of a man for whom science is the only hope.