Review: “I Am Legend”

The latest Will Smith blockbuster, “I Am Legend” has recently hit the DVD market. Regardless of the critics and their respective opinions, I will indeed posit my own opinion in regard to the film and the very question that the film poses. The film is based upon the Thoman Matheson book of the same title. In essence, without spoiling it for the few that actually read this blog, the film revolves around Smith’s character, who is the supposed last person on Earth. With this tale encompassing an “Orwellian twist,” he ends up being the last person on the planet after a “cure” for cancer has gone awry and turned into a virus that has wiped out humanity, or most of it. Smith’s character is the only individual that is immune from this virus. The question is then, what would you do if you were “the last person” on Earth?

I am firmly aware of the old saying that the best of intentions have led to some of the worst things imaginable. Take for example Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). After reading into the origin of AIDS, I have come to believe (as previously written about) that AIDS occurred in humans due to a polio vaccine gone wrong in Africa in 1957-1958. To make a long story short, it appears as if the vaccine was manufactured out of the kidneys of chimpanzees, which are our closest living relatives. Chimpanzees or some of them at least, carry SIV or Simeon Immune Deficiency Virus. SIV as it would appear to the regular conspiracy theorist, then morphed into HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Granted, AIDS is currently restricted to those who come in direct contact (certain bodily fluids) with those who already have either HIV or “full blown AIDS.” But there is always the potential for AIDS or an unknown virus out there to effectively wipe us out. Many virologists would posit the fact that a virus has the ability to become airborne. What would you do if you were immune from such a super virus? That is, what if your very blood contained the secret to surviving such a catastrophe? That you were one of the very few humans that was able to survive the virus and the chaos that it caused?

It is indeed an enticing plot line that keeps the curious viewer enamored with the film, at least if one is partial to such a plot line. Luckily for us, Will Smith has not really gone “batshit crazy” over the whole scientology thing, unlike Tom Cruise. Have you seen Tom Cruise in any films worth seeing within the past few years? I do not believe so. Smith is indeed affiliated with scientology, at least to an extent, as far as what I understand from the tabloids. Personally, I do not see the virtue behind scientology, even though it is indeed up to the individual to choose their own “religion.” Never the less, when one works in the spotlight of Hollywood, affiliation with questionable organizations such as scientology can indeed hamper profits and roles that the studios are willing to delve out to such individuals.

Overall then, I would rate this film a figurative 7/10, even though I have yet to see “28 Days Later,” a film that is rather similar in the already posited “Orwellian” context.