Visit MOVIE SMACKDOWN! for more film-on-film violence...
Review by Bryce Zabel
Empty Cities; Empty Souls
The Smackdown. Richard Matheson's original 1954 novel, I Am Legend, put ideas into the 50s zeitgeist that have stayed with us, spawned spin-offs, rip-offs and re-makes. Now, after years of starting and stopping, there is finally a film that uses the original, powerful title that the writer himself felt was appropriate for his work. That film is "I Am Legend." It follows a lineage of trying to adapt the brilliant original to film with spotty success (at least, critically); from the 60s version made in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis; to the 70s version where Charlteon Heston brought his post-"Planet of the Apes" sci-fi cred to the endeavor; to this post-millennial version which wants to do what all the others set out to do but fell short of, but with today's fears, not yesterday's. These are three films that say as much about who we were at the time of their production as they do about the actual films themselves. "I Am Legend" hits the theaters on December 14, "The Omega Man" was just re-released on Blu Ray and HDVD, and "The Last Man on Earth" has multiple versions out there. Let's say, though, that this being the holiday season and all, you've only got the stomach for one good, end of the world, post-apocalyptic journey. Which one?
"I always thought of you as one of the best examples of man's best friend, completely, you know? But whatever those guys are, I got my doubts."
The Challenger. You've heard that this was a troubled production. To show how long that's been going on, consider this. The lead in this movie was supposed to have been played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ridley Scott was set to direct. When you see how relatable and human Will Smith can be, and what a fine actor he's become with every new movie, you will be so damned happy that they waited to get this right, you will probably want to do something to proclaim this that you'll probably be driven to do something nuts like write a review. I went to see this film with my 15-year-old Jared at a WGA screening put on by Warner Brothers at TV Academy Theater (the same place where, as chairman a few years ago, I got to announce the Emmy nominations at 5:20am). The trailers and the hype had worked their magic. We were stoked to be seeing this at all, but two weeks before it's out officially, and in a phenomenal theater, we really couldn't wait.
The story is that Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the last survivor of a pandemic caused by a "cure" for cancer that turned out to be a mutating son-of-a-bitch of a virus that jumped tracks somewhere and became a human rage virus. Sort of like "28 Days Later" and that's all the spoiling we'll do here. The future time frame of this latest apocalypse is 2012, although the virus raged across the planet in 2009.
"When you stop caring about cleanliness, man, I mean to tell you, that's really the end of the world."
The 70s Champion. I saw "The Omega Man" for probably $1.50 or $2.00 at the Town Theater in Hillsboro, Oregon when I was a kid. It worked for me. Watching Charleton Heston tool around an empty Los Angeles in that hot car of his, taking whatever he wanted from whatever store he was in, watching movies for free as many times as he wanted, that was a lifestyle that really seemed special. Of course there were those oddball zombie/mutant dudes lead by an albino Anthony Zerbe, and that was a pesky detail, for sure.
Boris Sagal directed this version from a script by John William Corrington and Joyce H. Corrington based on the Matheson novel. In this telling, the future apocalypse is 1977, two years since a biological war between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union pretty much wiped out humanity. Like Will Smith's Dr. Robert Neville, Charleton Heston's characer was a military scientist when the plague hit. He's injected himself with an experimental vaccine, and it must have worked, because the LA of this timeline is one where, shall we say, freeway traffic congestion has been addressed and is no longer an issue.
"When I said 'leave me alone, God,' I was just talking about, at that time. Because, right now, I could use a little company."
The 60s Champion. As long as we're using the box office barometer of my childhood as an indicator, let's just say that if I could remember seeing "The Last Man on Earth" as a kid, it would have cost me $.25 at the Hill Theater in Hillsboro. These days there are multiple editions of this available on DVD, mostly because it's fallen out of copyright and into public domain. It's most true to the novel's use of vampires over zombies over raging pandemic victims, but that also makes it less believable. Oh, and they shot it in Italy, which gives it a whole other vibe.
Directed by Sidney Salkow, "The Last Man on Earth" actually has Matheson a screenwriter who, apparently, was so turned off by what the writers who came after him did to the material, that he took his credit by the name of Logan Swanson. This film's future apocalypse is set in 1968, where every day Dr. Robert Morgan (horror veteran Vincent Price) grabs his weapons and goes vampire hunting. These are real vampires, the kind who can't stand sunlight, recoil from mirrors and can't stand garlic. This Dr. Morgan is immune to the disease that caused this (it wasn't biting) because, he surmises, he was bit by a bat at a young age. The last image here is memorable because he gets chased into a church and murdered on the altar, like "Cool Hand Luke" and Jesus.
The Scorecard. Each film worked for its time. "The Last Man on Earth" was pretty much meant to be a B film, afternoon matinee, grab a bag of popcorn kind of movie. Nobody expected huge production values, and because we hadn't seen "28 Days Later" and the like, we didn't care. It seemed to dial into the spiraling fears we all felt in a world that could be nuclear incinerated any night while we lay sleeping. "The Omega Man," on the other hand, had different expectations on its way to the screen and so its failings are a little harder to forgive. We liked it, but it hasn't aged so well. Purists, on the other hand, may want to argue that the current "I Am Legend" has lost its way, stripping away vampires, etc. Thinking about Spoiler Alerts, let me phrase this carefully. "I Am Legend" starts with one of the best openings I've ever seen in a film, let alone a sci-film. It takes you on a journey that is both a thrill ride and a thought puzzle. It ends and you're sorry it's over.
The Decision. When it works, "The Last Man on Earth"
feels like maybe Rod Serling had done it for "Playhouse 90" as the
pilot for the "Twilight Zone." It floats, in film form, this idea that
was to have great hold on our imaginations. Seven years later, when
they made "The Omega Man," the idea was to hip it up for the times, to
make it a big commercial movie, and they lost the cool factor with the
awful zombies they created. Finally, though, this bold new "I Am
Legend" has done it all. It's hugely commercial, powerfully thoughtful and brilliantly executed. It is also the new champion by a knock-out. See this movie.
