Unabashed

It isn’t often you see a movie and feel fundamentally changed afterwards. But that’s what I feel after watching I Am Legend with Will Smith yesterday. Don’t worry, there are no plot spoilers here.

1. I’ll never listen to Bob Marley the same again. The legendary Legend tune “One Love” was played numerous times during the movie, but in one scene Will Smith’s character sings it, in a scene which ripped my heart out and stomped it flat. I still can’t get over that scene.
2. If you don’t like movies that can depress you, I recommend you stay away from this one, as great as it is. It is moving. Stirring. All those glossy words reviewers use to describe movies fit this one, but with I Am Legend, they resound truth in its essence. This movie is gripping.
3. The true horror of this movie has nothing to do with the mutated humans. It has everything to do with Will Smith’s character, Robert Neville, and his tormented soul. There’s more angst in that heart of his than, thankfully, most people will ever know. Of course, you don’t know this at the beginning, you only know he’s a survivor of some kind of apocalyptic scourge. From there, you learn in blips how truly bad things really are, and then they get worse.

I won’t give anything away other than to say this movie affected me more than almost any other movie ever has. And not in good ways. But don’t take this to mean that I hated the movie. No, I loved it, even though I was saddened by it beyond expression. It’s nothing like the sappy Armageddon, with scenes designed to make you cry by some great heroic feat at the end of a life, no, it was much, much more than that. This movie moves with a tortured soul of its own, and Will Smith’s marvelous performance gives that soul the voice it needs.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Bob Marley, I Am Legend, One Love, Will Smith