Friday Review
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Will vs. God’s will? -- I am Legend
Spectacular visual effects: I am Legend
Genre Thriller
Director Francis Lawrence
Cast Will Smith, Alice Braga
Storyline The lone survivor of an apocalyptic virus attack that has left the world infested with zombies tries to invent a cure and stay alive.
Bottomline When there’s Will, there’s always a way.
Take the premise of ‘Resident Evil: Extinction,’ humanise it a little like ‘Cast Away’ to make it the survivor’s tale, add the moody intensity of ‘28 Weeks Later’… wait, now this might seem like a run-o
f-the-mill zombie flick.
But when you put Will Smith into this formula, add some imaginatively realistic yet spectacular visual effects to it and an emotional core to the apocalyptic horror plot, the very familiar zombie genre seems to have acquired a heart.
‘I am Legend’ transcends the zombie-horror genre, with Smith’s well-nuanced control of histrionics. If Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks in ‘Cast Away’) had Wilson (a volleyball for a companion), scientist and lone survivor in Ground Zero of the attack, Robert Neville (Smith in ‘I am Legend’) who has natural immunity to the virus, talks to his pet Samantha and mannequins around New York City to keep his sanity alive. Right from the establishing shots of NYC in 2012, the movie has you hooked by the magic of visual effects. Not because the after effects of the apocalypse are far from your imagination (like in ‘Resident Evil,’ where the whole of America was reduced to a desert), but because it all seems so real – the skyscrapers have survived, so have the cars covered by dust and the roads – almost, except for wild grass that has made its way through the cracks.
Addressing questions
New York City does feel like a ghost town because director Francis Lawrence decides to keep your disbelief minimal (that is why the visual effects would have been an uphill task) and addresses every question you may have about the survivor, scene after scene: What is he doing out there hunting? Why hasn’t he left New York City in search of survivors? What is his day like? Why is it so important to live by the routine? What happens if he breaks it? How intelligent are the zombies? Is there any way he can actually take on millions of zombies?
The answers make up the detail in the film and this gives the film a coat of realism, Will isn’t a superhero. He’s a survivor who’s vulnerable and he’s not trying to be a hero. He isn’t part of ‘MIB’ or the cast of ‘Independence Day.’ His Robert Neville has to be the best performance by an actor in a horror film in recent times.The first two acts of the film and the realism employed give it the quality of a masterpiece in the genre. The final act maybe a bit of a dampener with its philosophical touches, but that does not take away the brilliance of story-telling that scares, haunts, moves you, always keeping you on the edge of the seat.
SUDHISH KAMATH
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
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