I am Legend

I thought I liked this movie about as much as everyone else in the theater with me, but then when I began reading other reviews online, I felt like I was much more attentive than other critics.

One asked, "Why is Will Smith creating a vaccine if he is the only person alive? Is it for himself?"
NO!!! Didn't you hear that he is already immune?! Jesus! Pay attention!

Another noted an apparent discrepancy between a comment Will Smith makes about the social de-evolution of the vampires, and the subsequent events in the film. They read this as sloppiness, but OBVIOUSLY it is hamartia. Bone up on your Greek tragedy, man!

You may have heard that this film does not end well. That is true. But let us compare it to the outrageously ham-fisted Christ imagery that ends The Omega Man, an earlier film version of the same sci-fi novel. Charlton Heston, in the other two films of his big trio of dystopian films, Soilent Green and Planet of the Apes, really mastered the Anagnorisis or recognition scene: "Soilent Green is PEOPLE!" and "YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!" The Omega Man, on the other hand, ends ridiculously and badly, with Heston in total crucifix-mode, making a claim for its own importance that was blown from the first time the groovy white-afro'd subterranean medieval nocturnal evildoers show up.

Actually, the vampires in I am Legend aren't so hot, either, once you can actually see them. But for the first hour of the movie, where they are lurking in the dark, the movie is pretty fucking scary. Not the least reason for the film's success is in turning ubiquitous movie location, New York City, into a terrifying place for all sorts of reasons other than those that make New York actually kind of a terrifying place.

So, I hardly breathed during the first hour of this film, and there are no cheesy fake-out parts where, instead of something scary happening---oh, it was just something innocuous accompanied by the audio cues for scariness. In this movie, it's never, "I thought it was a monster but it was just my friend coming over unannounced and not knocking." And it is genuinely frightening. So, kudos.

I'll conclude by saying that, again showing how seriously I took this film, that I engaged in some "deep thoughts" during its running time. Why not kill oneself? How does one live without other people? What is the meaning of life? Is it just in routine? or in some of the other motives on offer here? So, that's embarrassing for me, but I put it forth as a recommendation that this movie at least partially justifies some attention and involvement from the viewer, which was not a given for the new Will Smith sci-fi vehicle.