Starring: Will Smith, Alice Braga
Director: Francis Lawrence
Category: IIB
I Am Legend may be the latest addition to the zombie cinema canon, but it actually has more in common with Cast Away than Night of the Living Dead. This is the third film adaptation of Richard Matheson's novella, where a virus has wiped out most of humanity and those who didn't die have become nocturnal cannibals. The sole immune individual is a military scientist (Will Smith) who, when the story starts, has already spent three years with only his dog for companionship.
Where previous movies (1964's The Last Man on Earth and 1971's The Omega Man) focused on the flesh-eating ghouls, the new film explores the psychological fragility of life in isolation. The charismatic Smith has tamped down his usual bravado - although when he cracks and asks a mannequin to 'please say hi to me' it seems less lonely desperation than a bid for Oscar attention.
Director Francis Lawrence heightens the paranoia by moving the setting from Los Angeles to New York's denser confines for post-September 11, post-Sars resonance. Flashback scenes refer to it as 'ground zero' for the virus. The city is overgrown with weeds and wild animals now inhabit the jungle.