"I am Legend"

**Attention Readers: There are spoilers in the post, if you haven't already seen this movie!!**

When experimenting with medicine, anything can happen. One can make the cure for cancer, or one can make a virus that kills about 95% of the population. My film critique will be on I Am Legend, directed by Francis Lawrence. The screenplay was written by Akira Goldsmen and Mark Protosevich. The movie was made in the United States and it came out on December 16, 2007. Some of the main members of the cast were Will Smith, Alice Braga, and Charlie Tahan.

I Am Legend is considered to be a science fiction horror film. In the movie, Will Smith, who plays virologist Robert Neville is the only human left in New York city because he is immune to the virus. The man-made virus either killed people or turned them into mutants who were bloodthirsty and unable to walk in the sunlight (Vampire like zombies).

Neville spends his days hunting for food, recording broadcasts to any other survivors, and experiments on infected rats to find a cure for the virus. Fortunately for him a mother and son save his life and then they work together to protect each other from the mutants as the family plans to go to a survivor camp. Neville continues his experiments to find the cure, which he was able to create before his death.

I believe the film is more than something to entertain viewers. It brought emotion and it felt real. It wasn’t all fictional and it contained some real-life problems like loneliness and it is shown through Neville when his only friends were mannequins and he actually gets a little crazy when he starts talking to them.

It wasn’t just another zombie movie. It was so much more than that. The dialogue for the most part was well done considering the situation of Smith’s character, Robert Neville. He was by himself for a long time with his only company being his German Shepard, Sam. From the script and the action to the transitions from each scene, the movie was aesthetically pleasing and was well done. Will Smith was an amazing actor in this film because he was able to take his character who has gone through so much and put in so much emotion and dedication.

One important theme of this movie was a butterfly. I believe this symbol means that better things are coming, almost like a resurrection. There is hope that there will be a rebirth of mankind. Throughout the movie, butterfly symbols were shown. It first started with a zoom in on a butterfly poster with the quote, “God Still Loves Us”, moving on to a flashback of Neville’s daughter making a butterfly with her hands, next a butterfly in the fields by Sam’s nose, then on a drawing in Marley’s room, the butterfly tattoo on Anna, and finally in the end the butterfly shown through the cracked glass. What’s amazing about this is that it’s sort of a hidden message. Unless one sees the repetitive small detail, no one would even know. What this symbol explains is that there is hope throughout the movie for a better world, even if it may seem unchangeable and hopeless. It symbolizes rebirth and hope because Neville dedicated his time creating the cure and right before he sacrifices himself, he sees the butterfly and then gives the cure to Anna who has a butterfly tattoo, who safely delivers it to a survivor’s camp. The butterflies before were foreshadowing the rebirth of the population. Overall the plot was very suspenseful, left the viewers in shock, and was emotionally moving. The editors put in the sound effects and music at the right times and everything fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

For this movie, I believe the cause of the outbreak was because of a virus. It stated that before the outbreak happened they were trying to make a cure for cancer, which ultimately failed and infected about 5% of the population while killing 95%. Only about 1% were immune ergo Robert Neville being the only person in New York. If I remember correctly, Neville was using his blood to experiment with when he was trying to create the cure because of this immunity. Since so many people died, it would be because of a fast spreading virus, almost like the plague. All in all I Am Legend is one of the better movies ever made.