Things only get personal when they go after his dog.Īpart from all the product placements, which feel weirdly incongruous in the context of Armageddon, the first two thirds and change of I Am Legend is terrific mindless fun: crackerjack action with gnashing vampires barely glimpsed (and scarier for that) and how’d-they-do-that New York locations that retroactively justify the traffic jams.

Smith does grisly experiments on vampires in his basement, but he’s searching for a cure for their virus. (Led by Anthony Zerbe, they seemed more likely to bore you to death than eat you.) Neither film caught the nihilistic mood of Matheson’s book, in which the hero is as vicious and feral as the ghouls. The Last Man on Earth (1964) featured a whiny Vincent Price besieged by zombielike bloodsuckers, while The Omega Man (1971) cast lockjawed Charlton Heston opposite hooded Manson-family-like albinos who wouldn’t shut up. I Am Legend is the movies’ third stab at Richard Matheson’s novella of the same name. His solitary existence isn’t as sad as it might be with more of a people person. And as he proved in Independence Day and The Pursuit of Happyness, Smith is in his element cracking wise by his lonesome. For quite a spell, we don’t know why Smith is the last human standing and don’t much care we assume, correctly, that we’ll get traumatic depopulation flashbacks whenever the plot runs down. He even has a companion-a loyal German shepherd named Sam. Yes, there are hordes of hairless, feral vampires, but during the daylight hours they huddle indoors, leaving the hero of I Am Legend at liberty to drive like a maniac down empty avenues and shag golf balls from an aircraft carrier into the harbor, the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges (their middles blown out) a magnificent backdrop. It’s an especially happy pipe dream during the holidays: midtown Manhattan depopulated but for deer, a few lions, and the congenial Will Smith standing in for all of us.

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