I Am Legend…ary?

My recent viewing of I AM LEGEND – a stunning documentary that chronicles Will Smith’s attempts to save a plague-ravaged New York from hordes of cannibalistic ghouls (who knew things there had gotten so bad?) – prompted a grammatical debate between me and Chels. Her take is that the film’s title should be either I AM A LEGEND or I AM LEGENDARY, as opposed to the “sounds kind of wrong but cool at the same time” moniker that ended up on the one-sheet. My thinking is that “legend” – much like “human” – can be used either as a state of being or as a proper noun, all depending on the connotation. “I am human” and “I am a human” are both correct, for instance, but can mean very different things. Of course, since I was described in my time at UBC as a “soft core” English major, this is mostly guess work on my part. I welcome anyone with full-fledged credentials to drop some truth bombs here on the site.

At any rate, the movie was pretty great. The deck was stacked its favor from the get-go since “last man on Earth” stories are an achilles heel of mine, but I can honestly say it was nothing if not entertaining right up until the end. Or at least until twenty minutes from the end, when the reshoots started kicking in. Given that I was reminded the other night of just how annoying spoilers can be (way to ruin the final HARRY POTTER book and shatter my innocence in the process, Chris), I’ll go ahead and avoid any details. But I will say that the film is all about Will Smith killing vampires, right up until it’s not. After that, it kind of feels like a talking lion is going show up to teach us all a valuable lesson.

Luckily, escapist fantasy rules supreme for the majority. And while the special effects and battle scenes are incredible, the movie’s worth seeing just for its clever touches in near-future production design. This billboard in a post-apocalyptic Times Square – advertising the long-gestating BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN movie as coming out in 2009 – is my favorite example. The studio says it’s a joke, but a boy can dream…

Luckily, there are plenty of “cannibalism running amuck in a post-apocalyptic world” stories to keep all of us busy until the day when Superman inevitably crushes the life from his pointy-eared cohort. I’m linking to Jouni Koponen’s illustrated version of one of my favorites – Neil Gaiman’s inspired BABYCAKES – as a suggested starting point. Yum!