I Am Legend vs Cast Away

In I Am Legend, Will Smith’s character, Robert Neville, gets caught in a snare, and after cutting himself down, comes crashing to the ground, hard. Not only is he hurting from the fall, he’s got his knife stuck in his thigh. Now, even though Robert Neville is the lead character in a mainstream action movie, he cannot bring himself to pull the knife from his leg, because it would obviously hurt too badly. Not only that, but Robert can’t stand and run to his truck, even though it’s of the utmost importance that he do so. Instead, he scoots backwards, on his butt, until he reaches his goal, huffing and puffing the entire time, just like I would. Consider the following: I Am Legend has been bouncing around Hollywood for years, and almost starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. Think about that for a second. What kind of character would Robert Neville be, in the hands of Mr. Schwarzenegger? He’d no doubt be nearly wordless, and he snap that knife right back out of his leg, sprint to his truck, and get back to killing…whatever it is out there in the dark of I Am Legend. What Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Robert Neville wouldn’t be is as real and human as Will Smith’s, and he surely wouldn’t feel as much pain. Also, I wouldn’t like him. There, I said it. Simply put, Will Smith is just about the most enjoyable presence in movies today. If I ever direct a movie I think might too tragic for audiences to accept, I’ll show footage of Will Smith over the end credits. Maybe something from Men in Black or the video for Miami.

I Am Legend is one of those movies set in the near-future where Something. Has. Happened. We get a few flashbacks and learn that a. Emma Thompson has found the cure for cancer; b. The cure eventually turns cancer into rabies (oops); c. The President quarantines New York; and d. The rabid post-cancer New Yorkers are now living as predatory vampiric zombies, like something out of 28 Days Later or that terrifying Aphex Twin video. Thanks a lot, Emma Thompson.

There are a few citizens immune to the virus, but in New York, there is only one: Robert Neville, and for much of I Am Legend, he’s the only person we see at all (he doesn’t see anyone besides his dog, Sam, and a few mannequins he’s posed around town to encounter during his daily routine). Robert has put a radio message out to anyone listening: he’s there, he’s working on a cure, and he’ll help you find safety, food and company, if you need it. No one answers, so Robert continues on, alone, hunting for deer in Times Square, renting every movie alphabetically (he returns them when he’s finished, on time, because Will Smith is a good guy. How many times I gotta tell you that?), and working diligently on a cure for the condition that has robbed him of everyone he ever knew (he’s got a lab full of zombied-up rats that would put the monkeys in 28 Days Later on the run).

I Am Legend was directed by Francis Lawrence, who also directed Constantine, which was, I thought, pretty underwhelming. He does an all right job here. I Am Legend is beautifully shot; the scenes of Robert alone in New York are breathtaking. Likewise, the creatures that come out at night are just human-looking enough to be terrifying (if they were more monstrous, they’d look fake). There are a couple other characters introduced way too late in the movie to have much impact. I can see what the filmmakers were thinking, but in a world where Children of Men already exists, well, maybe just leave well enough alone, you know? The end of the world thing has been done, the plague of man thing has been done. What hasn’t been done is the Will Smith don’t need no costars thing, and for most of the movie, it’s a tactic that works. In a different year, perhaps with a different ad campaign, Will Smith’s performance in I Am Legend might be one for award consideration. And nobody ever said that about Arnold Schwarzenegger.

So, Children of Men is right there, waiting for you to watch it again. And you should. But so far on this site, we haven’t repeated any movies, and I don’t see why we should now, what with Cast Away being such an obvious follow-up to I Am Legend.

Let’s see: Hollywood’s most likable star (okay, so it’s a tie), playing a character all alone, possibly going crazy, possibly never to be seen or heard from again. Except not. The trailer for Cast Away ruined the entire movie (it shows him chubby and not stranded, stranded, deathly skinny and still stranded, then regular weight back home, talking with friends about missing his own funeral. What’s left?)

Cast Away is definitely still worth your time though. Robert Zemeckis usually pushes the boundaries of technology on his films, but Cast Away probably seems pretty easy and straightforward. That is, until you realize that the boundary he’s pushing this time is in his lead’s performance. Tom Hanks hasn’t been better than he is in Cast Away. He doesn’t seem extra-equipped for being stranded. You know how sometimes actors have obviously taken precautions and training for roles that their characters have not, and they’re all buff and ready for action when they should be caught off guard? Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis stick, as closely as possible, to what might really happen. How would you get shoes, if yours were gone? What would you eat? Could you build a fire? Hanks’ early scene of failing to make fire is almost too good and too human. I’ve seen it a few times now, but never without flinching.

We know he makes it back, of course, and like with I Am Legend, the ending of Cast Away arrives with a couple too many characters (it should be said, however, that Helen Hunt is good as Tom Hanks’ fiancé, who also behaves pretty much as a person might in her situation. She’s not out there in a helicopter searching the ocean; she’s back on land, trying to move on with her life.) If Cast Away is ultimately a little more successful than I Am Legend, I think the blame lies squarely on the limits of the latter’s genre. I Am Legend tells a story that has been told and will be told again and again, and there are only so many fresh spins. Cast Away doesn’t feel limited by its plot. The absence of zombies guarantees that Cast Away will always fall comfortably into the Drama category. Really though, both movies are about individuals alone in their respective worlds, each trying to bring as much light into the darkness as possible. If they weren’t each so damn likable, they’d have a lot more trouble.

I Am Legend: B+

Cast Away: A-