ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Here’s another movie I like quite a lot, dispite the low opions of many other folks.

Apparently the only way to enjoy any specific version of The Last Man on Earht is be completely unframilar with all the other versions, so that comparisons won’t ruin it.

It’s especially important not to have seen the Vincent Price vesion, because that one apparently mesmerizes its viewers and makes then hate every other attempt to tell the story.

I’m not saying they’re all equally good. But for me personally, the Vincent Price film seems a tad bit overrated.

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I Am Legend (2007)

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3rd version of the Richard Matheson novel; the previous ones were The Omega Man in 1971 starring Charlton Heston and The Last Man on Earth in 1964 with Vincent Price.

In this one, Will Smith takes on the role of the lone survivor of a worldwide plague, coming about from a mutated virus. Of course, he's not really the lone survivor; and I'm not talking about the cartoon-like monsters with which he shares the city — no, I'm skipping all the way to the end when we see that there are many survivors in other pockets outside the city, so Smith's role is undone at this point; he's simply a poor fool who wandered around an empty city, thinking he's alone.

There are plot points that don't add up very well to me. Smith as Neville has apparent natural immunity — this would mean there are plenty of other people who would have this immunity — on the order of at least 3% to 5% of the population. It can't be just him.

Yet during most of the film he behaves (and the audience is made to think) that he is the lone survivor other than those mutated into monsters.

He has a dog companion in this film, unlike the previous versions. Though losing such a friend would impress on us his now extreme loneliness, it's less effective for the first half of the film in comparison to the lonely plight of the last man in the previous film versions, or the version in the novel.

Having this great 'man's best friend' by his side for the first couple of acts takes away most of that feeling of solitude which the other versions are best known for and which make them singular film experiences.



Still, the empty streets of New York City, becoming already overgrown with intruding vegetation three years after the holocaust, the occasional wild animal — these lend a poignant if disquieting allure to the proceedings.

Unfortunately, modern film-making always seems to attach chaotic action scenes to even such quietly provocative fare — Neville is soon seen chasing after some potential dinner and it's an imitation of the standard car chase scenes in other standard films of this era.

It gets worse later — the mutated humans are little more than video game creations, bouncing off the architecture with no weight to their presence. They are even named "Dark Seekers" — typical monsters from the video game universes, strictly for the teens and pre-teens.

BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)