Movie Analysis: The Measle Virus
Somehow immune to an unstoppable, incurable virus, military virologist Robert Neville is now the last human survivor in New York City and maybe the world. But he is not alone. Mutant plague victims lurk in the shadows? watching Neville's every move? waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind's last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find an antidote using his own immune blood. But he knows he is outnumbered? and quickly running out of time.
SYNOPSIS
The movie begins with a newspaper interview with Dr. Kripper (Emma Thompson) who is speaking about the her scientific breakthrough. She has taken the Measles virus and altered it at a genetic level so that it attacks only cancerous cells. The treatment …show more content…
has proven 100% effective in over 10,109 clinical trials. The film then cuts to three years later and we see that New York is deserted. Grass is breaking through the concrete, cars are rusting in the streets, and entire buildings are covered in titanic sheets of plastic with Biohazard signs plastered all over them.
Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) is driving down one of the overgrown streets in a Ford Mustang when a herd of deer suddenly dart out from behind a building. He guns the engine and chases them through the streets, singling one out until it leaps over a blockade with dozens of cars blocking the road. Neville screeches to a halt, looks at Sam, his German shepherd companion, and steps out with his M4 rifle to track down the deer. Silently making his way through the tall grass growing between the cars, he spots the deers tail and takes aim just as it goes around a bus and under an overpass. Cursing, Neville lowers his rifle and begins to walk around the other side,
Sam at his heel. As he approaches the corner he raises the scope to his eyes and edges around, catching sight of the deer through an abandoned car. Carefully edging his way around the car for a clear shot, Neville takes aim and A lioness leaps out from behind a car on the other side of the deer, grabbing it and wrestling it to the ground. Neville holds the rifle to his and looks as though he is going to shoot the lioness, but he lowers it as a lion and two cubs come into view. He seems torn until his watch starts beeping. Turning off the alarm, Neville glances at the sun, which is beginning to makes its way down the horizon. He turns to Sam and tells him its time to go.
Neville drives home, switching vehicles to an SUV with a large amount of gear strapped to the roof rack.
As he pulls up to his house, we see several barrels, with what looks like explosive devices attached to them, scattered around the outside area of the house. As Neville exits the SUV, he grabs a satchel and a squirt bottle from the back seat. Walking backwards up to the front door, he squirts the ground and stairs behind him with the liquid inside of the bottle. A shot of the kitchen reveals it to be well-stocked and very orderly. When Neville takes a can of Tomato sauce from the cupboard, he replaces it from a stack under the table. He makes dinner for him and his dog while the TV plays a recorded news broadcast that is obviously several years old as it shows one of the hosts outside measuring the snowfall with a ruler. Neville tells Sam to eat her vegetables and not just push them around her plate. His watch alarm goes off again and he takes Sam upstairs to have a bath. After turning on his iPod player, Bob Marley starts to sing Dont Worry. He washes Sam, telling her that hell forgive her for not eating her vegetables today if she eats double tomorrow. While singing along with the music, Neville starts to zone out and looks as if he is remembering something until Sams barking brings him back to reality and the beeping of his watch. He shakes his head and then gets up and starts to cover every window with massive steel shutters and locks the door with an industrial-sized bolt. As the sun sets, he curls up in the bathtub with Sam, listening to the howls of the Infected and slowly drifts off to sleep and starts
dreaming
In the New York of three years ago, two unmarked, black government vehicles pull up to Nevilles house and he jumps out of one of them. His wife, Zoe (Salli Richardson) runs down the stairs of their apartment holding their child (Willow Smith) and Samantha as a puppy and asks whats going on. A man in a military uniform jumps out of the first car and tells Neville that they still have a 30 minute window. Neville tells his wife to get in the car and as they drive off, he asks how much money she got. When she tells him she has $600 dollars he tells her thats not enough and, once she is across the bridge, she needs to stop by an ATM and pull out as much as she can and then head to her sisters house where he will meet her in two weeks. She seems extremely frightened and asks him if it has become airborne. Neville guardedly tells her that he doesnt know and dismisses her request to come with them, telling her that New York is Ground Zero and that he has a two-week window to stop the spread of the virus. During this conversation his daughter is in the back complaining because she is confused. They only go visit her aunt during summer and it is Christmas. Eventually Neville and Zoe tell her to be quiet after she tries to get their attention by making a butterfly with her hands and saying Look at the butterfly, Daddy.
At this point, Neville wakes up in his bed (he must have moved during the night), with the sun streaming in through small cracks in the metal shutters over the windows. The first thing he does is exercise, doing pull ups and running on a treadmill with the dog running on a treadmill next to him. He then gets dressed and goes to a door under the stairs leading to the basement. Sam tries to follow him, but he tells her that she cant come down there and shuts her outside. He walks through a room bathed in UV light, grabs a lab coat, and walks into a very well appointed lab. Starting up an Apple computer with a wireless camera he begins to make a video journal for the day. He attaches the wireless camera to a pair of glasses and walks over to a boxy looking structure covered with a black tarp while dictating details of his experiments. Neville pulls off the tarp revealing about thirty stacked cages filled with Infected rats. They are completely hairless and begin to throw themselves at the Plexiglas cage doors as soon as they see him. He sighs and begins to dictate that the anti-virus seems to have had no effect on most of the subjects and seems to have killed several of them. He stops, however, because one of the rats is not throwing itself against the cage door. It is acting, well, rat-like. He looks at it more closely, dictating that it seems to have markedly decreased aggression as well as regaining some pigmentation and the ability to dilate its pupils in the presence of bright light. He makes a note then heads back upstairs, taking off his lab coat.
Opening up an armoire next to the door he grabs a jacket, M4, a set of keys (he has about 20, all for different cars), and the some DVDs and heads outside to his car. As the sun shines down on the city, Neville stops by a video store with several mannequins set up outside and inside dressed in different clothing styles. He seems to have formed some sort of personal relationship with them to cope with being the only human being in the city because he greets them by name as he walks in. There is a very humorous scene here while he is replacing the DVDs that he brought where he looks over and sees a female mannequin wearing very fashionable and expensive clothing standing next to the Adult DVD section. He seems flustered then grabs a pair of DVDs that were next to the ones he returned and makes his way to the front counter. Explaining to the mannequin behind the counter that he is halfway through the Gs he seems like he wants to ask him something about the lady by the adult section but he just shakes his head and walks out to his car.
He then goes to gather corn from a small field while talking to Sam and assuring Sam that he would go talk to the lady tomorrow. After collecting several ears of corn he heads back to his car and a voicover, most likely a repeating broadcast over the radio, tells whoever is listening that he is a survivor and he will be at the docks by the bridge at midday, when the sun is highest in the sky. The message says that he can offer food, shelter, and protection and invites any other survivors to come join him. He pulls up to the pier and makes his way to a desk at the very end, pulling notes and reading glasses out of his satchel and setting them neatly on the table. After a few hours, he takes a break and goes to hit some golf balls off the wing of a Blackbird spy plane sitting on top of a Carrier. Sam is sitting next to him and jumps up, spotting something on the mainland. Neville grabs a pair of binoculars and sweeps the area, stopping when he notices the tail of one of the deer vanishing around a bus. He grabs his jacket and rifle and makes his way over to where he spotted the deer. Flushing the deer out into the open, Neville gives chase while Sam runs ahead of him. The deer cuts under the tattered edge of one of the building-covering plastic sheets and then darts inside of the pitch black building. Sam runs in right after the deer while Neville shouts at her to stop.
Halting at the door Neville desperately whispers Sams name into the darkness. Not hearing a response, he hesitantly makes his way inside, flipping on a flashlight attached to the barrel of his rifle. Sweat pours down his face as he slowly, carefully stalks through the darkened building, fearfully whispering Sams name. He freezes and covers the flashlight with his hand when he hears a sharp, inhuman scream from a stairwell. After getting control of his breathing he again edges towards the door. Using quick bursts of light, moving his hand away from the flashlight for a second then replacing it, he comes around the corner and sees a pool of blood at the bottom landing of the stairs. Slowly making his way up to the top, he follows a trail of blood until he sees the dead deers muzzle poking out from behind a wall. Making his way down the hall with the deers head, which has been torn off, he looks down at the floor and sees millions of dollars just scattered on the ground. While distracted by the cash, he almost walks right into a room with a group of about ten infected arranged in a circle, sleeping. He freezes and seems to be trying to hold in a scream or control his breathing before he slowly makes his way backwards, trying not to make the money crinkle. He reaches the top of the stairs and hears a low whine from Sam from the other direction of the hallway.
Darting into a large room he waves his flashlight over the area until he sees Sam under a desk. He makes his way over to her and tells her to come out and then he notices that she is looking at something to the right of him. Whipping around he catches one of the Infected in the light as it leaps at him, firing several shots and killing it. Not stopping to make sure that its dead he takes off running with Sam following close behind as a chorus of roars and screams signify that the Infected have been woken up by the commotion. Neville spots a small square of light and begins sprinting for it, telling Sam to run ahead. Just as he makes to the light one of the Infected springs onto his back, throwing him forward and through a window two stories up. Neville grabs the Infected and uses it to break his fall, rolling off as the sunlight begins burning the skin of the Infected. It has lost all of its hair and its skin seems to be almost translucent in the light of day. Neville watches it until it dies then makes his way back to the car.
Drawing a small vial of his blood, Neville tells Sam to stay in the car because the dog is immune to the airborne strain of the virus but not from the contact strain. Neville returns to the building and sets up a snare trap with a tarp right inside the door so that it will pull whatever it catches into the open, covered with the tarp. He crushes the vial of his blood on top of the tarp and moves out to the street, taking position on top of a car so he can watch the door. Noises start to emanate from the darkness, growls and hisses, then the distinctive clink of the trap going off. The counterweight Neville had attached to the trap falls and pulls the catch through the door, tangled up in the tarp. Neville stops its struggling with a quick blow from the butt of his rifle. As he looks at the still form in the tarp, another one of the Infected, a male, tries to lunge through the door at him, but is held back by the others. The Infected stares at Neville, ignoring the burns that are beginning to appear on its flesh before allowing the others to pull him back into the darkness of the building. Neville shakes it off and takes the captured Infected to his lab.
Down in his lab, Neville again has his cam-glasses on and has the Infected stretched out on a stainless steel table, chain-reinforced restraint bands around her wrists, waist, and legs and has pumped her full of drugs to keep her sedated, noting that it takes six times as much dosage as a normal human. He is going to inject the infected with the same formula that seemed to work on the rat in the hope that it might have similar effects on humans. He notes that the Infecteds heart rate is 200 BPM and the temperature is 106 degrees before he injects the serum. Watching the monitor with hope in his eyes, Neville is ecstatic when the heart rate and temperature start dropping, until the Infected begins to have a seizure and the heart stops completely. He sighs and injects her with another substance (unknown, maybe original virus?) that causes the Infecteds heart to start back up. Frustrated with the tests failure, Neville wheels the Infected into a Plexiglas containment room and goes upstairs.
Sitting in the car Neville pulls out a map of Manhattan half covered in small xs over each block. He circles the next block in a row and makes his way to the house he marked. Sam goes through and gives a single bark as an all clear, after which Neville makes his way through the house, checking medications and supplies for anything useful and pulling the curtains off of windows to allow sunlight in. As he rummages through the kitchen he opens a cabinet with newspaper clippings on it, one of which is a story about the infection spreading to dogs. He makes his way through the rest of the rooms, coming across a bedroom with a quaranting plastic tent stretched over the bed. The door next to it has a bow and a note that says Do not open till Xmas. Nudging the door open, Neville sees that it is a nursery with two cribs, both with bows on them. He shuts the door and makes his way back to the car.
As he is driving home he glances over and slams on the brakes of the car. Across a bridge he sees one of the mannequins from outside of the video store standing at the other end in front of a large building. He slowly drives towards it until his way is blocked by a fallen light post, then gets out of his car and starts screaming at the mannequin and asking it why its not at the store. Neville demands to know if the mannequin is alive and then opens fire on it with his rifle, blowing the mannequin to pieces and knocking it back into the large puddle of water it was standing in. Slowly walking over to investigate, and keeping an eye on the large hole in the wall of the building, Neville steps into the puddle and then hears the sound of a snare trap going off and sees a taxi cab slide off the bridge, tightening the noose around his feet and slamming his head into the ground as he is pulled into the air.
While he is out, Neville has another flashback, starting where the first one ended. The three unmarked vehicles pull up to the same dock that Neville was sitting at, waiting for survivors. People are being checked for infection and evacuated with Helicopters and Ferrys but there is a huge crowd and they are starting to get desperate. Neville and his family are escorted to the front of the line where a woman with extremely red eyes is asking Neville to take her son with him. Neville ignores the woman and a soldier scans Neville, his daughter, and the dog, showing with a device that checks their eyes for signs of infection. When the soldier scans Zoe, however, she fails and is about to be escorted to the quarantine zone until Neville gets angry and pulls rank to force the man to rescan his wife. She is cleared this time and they make their way to the helicopter waiting to evacuate them. Zoe, Marley, and Samantha, the dog, all get onto the helicopter and they say a prayer with Neville before they take off. As he is stepping away from the helicopter his daughter hands him the puppy. He at first tries to resist but the helicopter is getting ready to take off so he grabs the puppy and moves away from the landing pad, waving to his family while the puppy tries to lick the tears off of his face.
Neville returns to reality still hanging from the trap. Sam is desperately barking at him and his watch alarm is beeping. He groggily looks around and notices that the sun is beginning to set behind the buildings. Reaching for a knife by his side, Neville tries to raise his torso to cut the rope holding him in the air but he cant hold himself up long enough. He tries again and manages to cut the rope, but he lands on the knife, breaking the blade off in his thigh. Neville tries to remove the blade but the pain is too much so he begins to drag himself back to the car. At this point the sun is so low that the only light is a narrow strip across the bridge that is rapidly shrinking. Neville is about halfway to the car when he hears the snarls and growls coming from the hole in the building. The same male that locked eyes with Neville when he captured the female steps out of the darkness, holding back to Infected dogs. The male lets out a roar and releases the dogs that race towards Neville and Sam. They are stopped, however, by the band of rapidly thinning sunlight that lies across the bridge and Neville begins to drag himself even faster, trying to reach the gun in the drivers side door of the car. The sunlight finally disappears as Neville drags himself to one foot and hops to the car pulling the pistol right as the first dog leaps for him. He shoots it dead, then attempts to shoot the one that is fighting with Sam, but a third dog leaps on him, knocking the gun out of his hands. Neville tries to defend himself against the dog, but its superior strength is obviously winning out. Just when the dog is about to get a hold of Nevilles neck, Samantha slams into it from the side, knocking it off Neville and into the side of the car. Freed, Neville jumps for the pistol and shoots the last dog.
Samantha has been injured pretty seriously and limps over and lies down. Neville holds back tears as he tries to comfort Samantha before he picks her up and puts her in the car and takes them home. Down in his lab, Neville lays Sam out on the table, shakily inserting a needle into the vial containing the serum that worked on the rat. Extracting some, he injects it into Samanthas shoulder sits on the floor, cradling her in his arms. He softly starts to sing Dont Worry to her as he strokes her hair. He blinks the tears in his eyes away and looks down at a clump of hair that has come off in his hand. He checks Samantha and sees that the pupils are fully dilated and her gums are rapidly becoming red and inflamed. Samantha starts to let out a low growl and tries to snap at Neville. He holds her head in place and tries to look away as he strangles her with his bare hands, still singing the song and only releasing her when her feet stop scrabbling at the floor of the lab (Im not ashamed to say that this part of the movie had me blinking back quite a few tears). The next day he goes and buries her in the cornfield then goes back to the video store and stands next to the female mannequin in the Adult section. I promised my friend that I would say hello to you. So, hello. At this point tears begin rolling down his cheeks. Please say hello. (Saddest part in the whole movie, fair warning).
That night, at the docks, Neville sits at his desk. A huge pack of Infected begins to stealthily creep up on him, the only sound is the soft padding of their feet. The lead Infected all break out into a run and right when they reach the figure at the desk Neville flips on the extra-bright UV lights on his car and floors it, driving straight through the center of the pack and knocking Infected flying left and right. He whips the car around and drives through again, but one of the Infected lands on the hood of the car and tries to break through the windshield of the car. Neville slams the car into a light pole, flinging the Infected off. The Alpha Male infected then commands two of the pack to slam into the side of Nevilles car. As they begin running towards him and picking up steam, Neville tries to throw the car in reverse, but he gets caught on the remains of the desk and the car flips onto its top when the Infected slam into the side of it. The Alpha Male makes his way to the car and begins to crawl inside snuffling at Neville like an animal. He is just about to tear Neville out of the car when suddenly blindingly bright lights illuminate the area. Neville passes out from the ordeal as a womans voice repeatedly asks him if hes okay. He passes out for a second then groggily begins to wake up as the woman is asking him where he lives and if its safe. Neville tells her the address but instructs her to wait until the sun rises to avoid having the Infected track him back to his house. At this point he passes out and we return to the docks three years earlier.
As Neville is stepping away from the helicopter and waving to his wife and daughter, a pair of fighter jets fly by overhead and launch missiles at the Manhattan bridge, blowing up a center section and effectively quarantining the island. The helicopter begins to take off with Nevilles daughter making a butterfly with her hands again. Neville is waving to her and hears a commotion at the other pier on the dock. A group of people have broken through the containment fence and are trying to swarm the other helicopter taking. Their uneven weight, however, has thrown off the helicopters control and it goes spiraling through the air towards the helicopter with Zoe and Marley. As the helicopters head towards each other Neville lets out a scream and right as they are about to collide
Neville wakes up in his living room. It is daytime, someone has put Shrek on the TV, and he can hear sounds coming from the kitchen. He feels his leg where the knife went in and sees that it has been neatly stitched. Standing up from the couch, Neville hobbles over to a desk and pulls a pistol out of one of the drawers. He makes his way into the kitchen and for a split second he sees his wife and daughter making breakfast, but then he blinks and sees that it is a different woman and her young son. She and her son are both frozen, unsure of how safe Neville is with the pistol that he is carrying. He notices what they are looking at and gingerly places the pistol on the counter. The woman invites him to sit down and says that she cooked some bacon and eggs, apologizing for the eggs because they are powdered. She serves Neville and her son then sits down to eat, introducing herself as Anna (Alice Braga) and her son as Ethan (Charlie Tahan). Neville is at a loss for words because he has been alone the past three years. He asks them where theyve been and what theyre doing here. She tells him that they have been in Maryland but are now making their way Vermont to a Survivors Colony there. He becomes visibly agitated and says that there are no Survivors Colonies. When she tries to argue with him, he smashes his plate down on the floor causing Anna and Ethan to jump up and away from him as Anna pulls her gun. He apologizes, saying that he was saving that bacon and goes upstairs to cool off. Anna lowers her gun and tells Ethan to put the knife that he grabbed back on the table.
When Neville comes back downstairs, Ethan is watching Shrek. Anna keeps a sharp eye on Neville and he begins to speak along with the characters in the movie. After a minute or two of this, he stops and looks sheepish, saying that he really likes Shrek. He goes in the kitchen with Anna where he apologizes for his outbreak and they begin conversing. She realizes that he is the Robert Neville, the famous scientist. He takes her down to his lab and shows her the captured Infected woman who has been packed in ice in an attempt to lower her body temperature to increase the effectiveness of the serum. She asks him if there is any place her son can sleep and Neville carries the son, who is sleeping on the couch, up to his daughters old room. It is still decorated like it was three years ago and Anna looks at some of the pictures sitting on a shelf and asks what the little girls name was. Neville tells her the girls name was Marley, after Bob Marley, and is shocked when the woman says that she has never heard of him. He takes her downstairs and puts one of Bob Marleys CDs on the stereo, explaining that Marley was an inspiration who believed that racism and hatred was like a virus that could only be cured with an injection of love and music. He tells her a story about how Marley was shot in his home two days before a concert promoting peace and still sang at the concert because the people that are trying to ruin this world dont take days off.
Anna then goes into a spiel about how everything was Gods will, and it couldnt have been a coincidence that she decided to come here and turn on her radio to hear his message. Neville gets really pissed off and yells at Anna, explaining that there were 6 billion people on earth when the virus was released. With an infection rate of 90% that means that 5.4 billion people were infected immediately. An immunity rate of only 2% meant that only 12 million people were immune to the virus. He then explains that the infected also turned on the immune, further lessening their numbers. He finishes by saying that there is no God, his fists clutched in rage in front of his face.
Neville stops his rant and cocks his head to the side. From outside the house a long-low roar echoes over the street and he gets a panicked look on his face as he asks Anna if she waited until the sun cam up to return to the house. She says that the sun was coming up but that Neville was losing a lot of blood and needed medical attention so she went to the house to treat him. He curses and explains that the Infected have tracked them down as he runs to the wall and flicks a switch activating a ring of UV spotlights around the house. The Infected already have a running start, however and managed to knock down several of the lights, creating openings before they can cause too much damage. Neville then grabs a remote device and waits until the Infected are in the middle of the barrels before he presses the button, causing all the barrels to ignite and killing dozens of Infected. Unfortunately, the concussion also dazed Neville and wrenched several of the metal shutters off their hinges, allowing two surviving infected to enter the house. Neville runs upstairs and is attacked by one while the other runs upstairs for Anna and Ethan. The Infected latches onto Nevilles shoulder and proceeds to toss him around the room before throwing him back down the stairs. Neville lands next to an umbrella holder which also holds his M4 rifle. He grabs the rifle and proceeds to open fire on the Infected who has followed him down the stairs. The Infected dives into the kitchen and Neville sights on a pallet of the squirt bottles he was seen with at the beginning of the movie. A single shot detonates the bottles, sending the Infected flying out of the kitchen before it scrambles back upstairs away from Nevilles rifle. Neville follows it up and kills it before it can escape out the window. The rifle is now empty so Neville throws it on the floor as he looks out the window and sees the Alpha Male staring at him.
Hearing a crash from upstairs, Neville remembers the other Infected that went after Anna and Ethan. He races up the stairs and pauses at the top when he hears a crash coming from his bedroom. Neville peers around the corner and sees one of the Infected crawling on the ceiling opening up a hole to the roof while Anna and Ethan hide under a dresser. Nevilles pistol sits on the nightstand and he starts moving towards it when Ethan lets out a peep. The Infected stops what its doing and drops down from the roof to hunt down the sound and Neville dives for the pistol and shoots the Infected in the chest, killing it. At this point the Alpha Male sends another wave of even more Infected at the house and Neville leads Anna and Ethan down to the basement lab area, locking the door behind them, and telling them to get into the Plexiglas room where Neville was keeping the Infected woman that he was experimenting on. They all run in and are shocked to see that the woman is showing signs of the infection reversing itself. Right then, the other Infected burst through the door to the basement and Neville closes the Plexiglas door just as they reach it. One of the Infected begins throwing himself at the door trying to break through until the Alpha Male picks him up and throws him across the room.
The Alpha Male then proceeds to start bashing the door with his head, eventually causing the glass to splinter and look like a distorted butterfly. His daughters voice runs through his head, telling him to look at the butterfly. He looks over at Anna and sees a butterfly tattoo on the side of her neck. Scrambling through the medical supplies, Neville pulls out a syringe and vial and proceeds to draw some blood from the Infected female. Telling Anna and Ethan to get into a small opening (chimney?), Neville hands Anna the vial and tells her that its the cure and that the Infected wont stop trying to break through the door. Anna tells him that there is room enough for all of them inside but Neville closes the door, telling her to wait until daylight to come out. He then turns around and pulls a grenade out of one of the other drawers and faces the Alpha Male. When the Alpha Male is almost through the glass Neville charges at the same time as the Male while pulling the pin on the grenade, detonating the Alpha Male and all the other Infected in the basement.
The next scene shows Anna and Ethan driving through rural Vermont countryside in the fall. The leaves on the trees are bright red-orange and there is no sign of the Infected. They pull up to a large steel door set into a concrete wall. Exiting the car, they walk up to the door and hear a beep before the door opens to reveal two armed military men guarding the entrance of the sanctuary. A voiceover tells about how Robert Neville gave his life for the cure while Anna hands it off to someone in the sanctuary, presumably a scientist.
--------- A virus is harnessed and used as a cure for cancer. Months later the recipients of the cure start to develop rabies-like symptoms as the virus mutates. Will Smith's character Robert Neville, and his dog Sam are survivors. Neville survives due to his immunity to both airborne and contact strains of the virus. As far as Neville knows, he is the only uninfected person in New York, and possibly the world. He spends his time trying to make contact with other survivors, working on a cure to the virus using his blood. He kidnaps an infected, Alpha female to try a antidote on. It fails, but he keeps her to continue his experiments. His dog is infected (dogs can only be infected by the contact strain) when Neville gets caught in a trap. He wants revenge but two survivors save him and the woman, Anna (Alice Braga) and the boy Ethan (Charlie Tahan) tell him about other survivors and a colony in Vermont. He doesnt believe them and starts to yell at her but he is interrupted by an attack by the Alphas. Neville, Anna and Ethan make it to the basement laboratory where they see that the final experiment on the Alpha female was successful. He draws a vile of blood from the Alpha and then gives it to Anna. The other alphas have broken down the door and are smashing there way into the alcove to get at them. There is a small door at the back and Neville helps Anna and Ethan into the safe space. He pulls a grenade from the desk and pulls the pin. The Alphas brake through to him just as the explosion rocks the building. The final scene is Anna and Ethan driving through Vermont and arriving at the colony with the antidote. There is a narration that explains the Legend of Robert Neville and his hope for humanity.
Cast
Will Smith - Robert Neville
Emma Thompson - Dr. Krippen
Alice Braga - Anna
Charlie Tahan - Ethan
Salli Richardson - Zoe Neville
Willow Smith - Marley Neville
Leonard A. Anderson - Sgt. Everrs
Abbey and Kona - Sam (Sammuel) the Dog
Dash Mihok - Infected Alpha Male
Joanna Numata - Infected Alpha Female
Pat Fraley - President (voice)
Mike Patton - Creature Vocal Effects
Francis Lawrence confirmed that there will be a prequel and that Will Smith will be reprising his role. He stated that this movie would reveal what happens to Neville before the infected take over New York. D. B. Weiss has been recruited to write the script, while Lawrence would direct "if we figure out the story." Smith stated the film would have Neville and his team going from New York City to Washington, D.C. and back again, as they made their last stand.[64] The film will again explore the premise of what it's like to be alone, as Lawrence explained, ". . . the tough thing is, how do we do that again and in a different way?"[65] The film is slated for release in 2011.[66][67] It has been confirmed that the title of the prequel is "I Am Legend: Awakening." Filming
The Brooklyn Bridge served as a location in I Am Legend, at which there was a $5 million scene filmed, the most expensive scene to date in New York City.
Akiva Goldsman decided to move the story from Los Angeles to New York City to take advantage of locations that would more easily show emptiness.[6] Goldsman explained, "L.A. looks empty at three o'clock in the afternoon, [but] New York is never empty . . . it was a much more interesting way of showing the windswept emptiness of the world."[23] Warner Bros. initially rejected this idea because of the logistics,[18] but Francis Lawrence was determined to shoot on location, to give the film a natural feel that would benefit from not shooting on soundstages. Lawrence went to the city with a camcorder, and filmed areas filled with crowds. Then, a special effects test was conducted to remove all those people. The test had a powerful effect on studio executives.[21] Michael Tadross convinced authorities to close busy areas such as the Grand Central Terminal viaduct, several blocks of Fifth Avenue and Washington Square Park.[18] The film was shot primarily in the anamorphic format, with flashback scenes shot in Super 35.[29]
Filming began on September 23, 2006.[30] The Marcy Avenue Armory in Williamsburg was used for the interior of Neville's home,[23] while Greenwich Village was used for the exterior.[15] Other locations include the Tribeca section of Lower Manhattan, the aircraft carrier Intrepid, the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx and St. Patrick's Cathedral.[6] Weeds were imported from Florida and were strewn across locations to make the city look like it had overgrown with them.[18] The closure of major streets was controversial with New Yorkers. Will Smith said, "I don't think anyone's going to be able to do that in New York again any time soon. People were not happy. That's the most middle fingers I've ever gotten in my career."[15]
A bridge scene was filmed for six consecutive nights in January on the Brooklyn Bridge to serve as a flashback scene in which New York's citizens evacuate the city. Shooting the scene consumed $5 million of the film's reported $150 million budget, which was the most expensive shot in the city to date.[citation needed] The scene, which had to meet requirements from fourteen government agencies, involved 250 crew members and 1,000 extras, including 160 National Guard members.[31][32] Also present were several Humvees, three Stryker armored vehicles, a 110-foot (34�m) cutter, a 41-foot (12�m) utility boat, and two 25-foot (7.6�m) Response Boat Small craft, as well as other vehicles including taxis, police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances.[33] Filming concluded on March 31, 2007.[30]
Reshoots were conducted around November 2007. Lawrence noted, "We weren't seeing fully rendered shots until about a month ago. The movie starts to take on a whole other life. It's not until later that you can judge a movie as a whole and go, 'Huh, maybe we should shoot this little piece in the middle, or tweak this a little bit.' It just so happened that our re-shoots revolved around the end of the movie."[34]
Alternate ending
The tone of the film's ending was altered before the film's release, especially the stand-off between Neville and the infected in his laboratory. Visual effects supervisor Janek Sirrs recounts the original ending starting with the stand-off: "At that point, Neville's-and the audience's-assumptions about the nature of these creatures are shown to be incorrect. We see that they have actually retained some of their humanity. There is a very important moment between the Alpha Male and Neville. The Alpha Male slapped his hand on the glass and smeared it revealing a butterfly shaped imprint." Neville realizes that the Alpha Male is identifying the infected woman he was experimenting on by a butterfly tattoo, and that the Alpha Male wants her back. Demonstrating that he will cease fighting and return her, Neville is allowed to approach them, with the Alpha Male ordering the infected not to touch him. Neville brings the Alpha Female back to consciousness, still infected, due to him having removed the cure, and the Alpha Male embraces her; David Schaub stated, "Then, when Neville finally turns the Alpha Female over to the Alpha Male, there is this little love moment between the two of them." Neville and the Alpha Male then exchange stares; Neville apologizes to them, which the Alpha Male acknowledges before the infected leave. He then looks at the photos of the infected he has experimented on and killed, and he realizes that he is the monster of their legends: the infected think of him as someone who hunts down and kills their people. The original final shot follows Neville, Anna, and Ethan as they cross the remnants of the George Washington Bridge in hopes of finding other survivors, accompanied by a recording from Anna telling possible survivors that there is hope, and Neville knows the compounds of the cure, meaning he can recreate it and help humanity survive and rebuild, thus establishing his legend.[4]
Directed by Francis Lawrence Produced by Akiva Goldsman
David Heyman
James Lassiter
Neal H. Moritz Written by Screenplay:
Akiva Goldsman
Mark Protosevich
Novel:
Richard Matheson Starring Will Smith
Alice Braga
Dash Mihok
Salli Richardson
Willow Smith
Charlie Tahan
Abbey and Kona Music by James Newton Howard Cinematography Andrew Lesnie Editing by Wayne Wahrman Studio Village Roadshow Pictures
Weed Road Pictures
Overbrook Entertainment Distributed by Warner Bros. Release date(s) December 14, 2007 Running time Theatrical cut:
100 min.
Alternate cut:
104 min. Country �United States Language English Budget $150,000,000 Gross revenue $585,349,010[1]
OWN ANALYSIS
There are some good points, but there are too many ineffectual aspects that keep I Am Legend from being the sophisticated film it was clearly meant to be.
Will Smith shows some promise trying to find a cure for a horrific virus, but somehow the plot becomes Shrek, Bob Marley and God trying to save the world.
I Am Legend Movie Synopsis
Robert Neville (Will Smith) is a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable... and manmade. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City... and maybe the world. But he is not alone. He is surrounded by "the Infected" -- victims of the plague who have mutated into carnivorous beings who can only exist in the dark and who will devour or infect anyone or anything in their path. For three years, Neville has spent his days scavenging for food and supplies and faithfully sending out radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. All the while, the Infected lurk in the shadows, watching Neville?s every move, waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind?s last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood. But his blood is also what The Infected hunt, and Neville knows he is outnumbered and quickly running out of time.
MY THOUGHTS.
From my personal point of view for 'Smith' to play a character that's alone throughout an entire film and to pass it off so well, he deserves a round of applause. What attracts me to the film so deeply is not just the story but the elegance of how well the film adapts and plays out. The audience are straight away emotionally connecting with Robert Neville (Smith) and i found myself striving for him to find the viral cure and some means means of civilization. The audience are teared through themes of honour, pride, passion, love, hate, determine, i felt as though i was close to shedding a tear many times throughout the film.
Up until the very end of the film things got gradually worse for smith. For me the most sad but beautiful shot in the entire film is when 'Robert's' god 'Samantha' gets killed and smith drives off in his SUV. The camera pans out from Smith to show a spectacular view of road and cars just justifieing how alone Smith really is in the world and how emotionally, mentally and physically lonely he is. Not only is he the last man in New York but his only means of interaction that happened to be with his dog are also lost, even the most manly of men became in touch with the femanine side there.
Overall i rate this film 9.5/10, to me the only downside to the film was that i found it to be a little short in length. My favourite aspect has to be that ironic contrast of 'Robert Neville' not only living inside New York but in 'Washington Square'. In 'Henry James' ' Novel 'Washington Square' the characters within the novel loose everything they have and own much like 'Robert' does. Within the novel only one character composes them self (Catherine) and strives for what she believes in. Catherine 'won't' and doesn't let her farther take control of her. Robert Neville won't let everything destruct and leave the world to fray, 'I won't let this happen.' Catherine and Robert share many comparisons in character and are unquestionably alike. Bear in mind 'I am legend' was wrote after 'Washington Square'.
A definate must see film, real action, real emotional and plenty of determination. KP.
Analysis Of I Am Legend
The way the world is seen varies with each passing person. What is observed as good from one may be the damning pathway to hell for another. Many times these beliefs are instilled upon us at a very early age which can result with a twisted outlook on life that we had little to no control over. As we grow older we are than further influenced through our religion (or lack of), culture, and passed experiences. With that in mind, it is easy to see that reality can be just as interchangeable and further raises the difficult question of what is real? Robert Neville, a man who on a daily basis struggles with the reality of being the last man on earth often only manages to keep going by holding on to the intangibles of hope, denial, and fear.
Robert Neville is a tough man. He has many facets to his character that range from war veteran to husband and father. All of these sides shine through as you learn the story of how he watched his family and friends die from a mysterious disease and then one by one watched them return from their graves with the need and obsessive thirst for blood; eventually only his blood. So this bizarre reality that he faces could hardly seem real, especially for a blue-collared, straight forward man like Robert Neville. He ultimately is the last person living (that he knows of) and now has to tackle the major problem of staying alive when hundreds of vampires are solely after his blood. He essentially makes his house a fortress that no vampire can infiltrate. Although they can't get to him they still come every night torturing him with cat-calls and yells that truly drive him mad. By far he is tormented most from his once good friend Ben Cortman who comes every night calling his name. Every night they destroy something and every day Neville has to fix it. As time passes he gets better with keeping up his home and learns more about the vampires, what caused them, how he can really kill them, and why he was not afflicted by...
SYNOPSIS
The movie begins with a newspaper interview with Dr. Kripper (Emma Thompson) who is speaking about the her scientific breakthrough. She has taken the Measles virus and altered it at a genetic level so that it attacks only cancerous cells. The treatment …show more content…
has proven 100% effective in over 10,109 clinical trials. The film then cuts to three years later and we see that New York is deserted. Grass is breaking through the concrete, cars are rusting in the streets, and entire buildings are covered in titanic sheets of plastic with Biohazard signs plastered all over them.
Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) is driving down one of the overgrown streets in a Ford Mustang when a herd of deer suddenly dart out from behind a building. He guns the engine and chases them through the streets, singling one out until it leaps over a blockade with dozens of cars blocking the road. Neville screeches to a halt, looks at Sam, his German shepherd companion, and steps out with his M4 rifle to track down the deer. Silently making his way through the tall grass growing between the cars, he spots the deers tail and takes aim just as it goes around a bus and under an overpass. Cursing, Neville lowers his rifle and begins to walk around the other side,
Sam at his heel. As he approaches the corner he raises the scope to his eyes and edges around, catching sight of the deer through an abandoned car. Carefully edging his way around the car for a clear shot, Neville takes aim and A lioness leaps out from behind a car on the other side of the deer, grabbing it and wrestling it to the ground. Neville holds the rifle to his and looks as though he is going to shoot the lioness, but he lowers it as a lion and two cubs come into view. He seems torn until his watch starts beeping. Turning off the alarm, Neville glances at the sun, which is beginning to makes its way down the horizon. He turns to Sam and tells him its time to go.
Neville drives home, switching vehicles to an SUV with a large amount of gear strapped to the roof rack.
As he pulls up to his house, we see several barrels, with what looks like explosive devices attached to them, scattered around the outside area of the house. As Neville exits the SUV, he grabs a satchel and a squirt bottle from the back seat. Walking backwards up to the front door, he squirts the ground and stairs behind him with the liquid inside of the bottle. A shot of the kitchen reveals it to be well-stocked and very orderly. When Neville takes a can of Tomato sauce from the cupboard, he replaces it from a stack under the table. He makes dinner for him and his dog while the TV plays a recorded news broadcast that is obviously several years old as it shows one of the hosts outside measuring the snowfall with a ruler. Neville tells Sam to eat her vegetables and not just push them around her plate. His watch alarm goes off again and he takes Sam upstairs to have a bath. After turning on his iPod player, Bob Marley starts to sing Dont Worry. He washes Sam, telling her that hell forgive her for not eating her vegetables today if she eats double tomorrow. While singing along with the music, Neville starts to zone out and looks as if he is remembering something until Sams barking brings him back to reality and the beeping of his watch. He shakes his head and then gets up and starts to cover every window with massive steel shutters and locks the door with an industrial-sized bolt. As the sun sets, he curls up in the bathtub with Sam, listening to the howls of the Infected and slowly drifts off to sleep and starts
dreaming
In the New York of three years ago, two unmarked, black government vehicles pull up to Nevilles house and he jumps out of one of them. His wife, Zoe (Salli Richardson) runs down the stairs of their apartment holding their child (Willow Smith) and Samantha as a puppy and asks whats going on. A man in a military uniform jumps out of the first car and tells Neville that they still have a 30 minute window. Neville tells his wife to get in the car and as they drive off, he asks how much money she got. When she tells him she has $600 dollars he tells her thats not enough and, once she is across the bridge, she needs to stop by an ATM and pull out as much as she can and then head to her sisters house where he will meet her in two weeks. She seems extremely frightened and asks him if it has become airborne. Neville guardedly tells her that he doesnt know and dismisses her request to come with them, telling her that New York is Ground Zero and that he has a two-week window to stop the spread of the virus. During this conversation his daughter is in the back complaining because she is confused. They only go visit her aunt during summer and it is Christmas. Eventually Neville and Zoe tell her to be quiet after she tries to get their attention by making a butterfly with her hands and saying Look at the butterfly, Daddy.
At this point, Neville wakes up in his bed (he must have moved during the night), with the sun streaming in through small cracks in the metal shutters over the windows. The first thing he does is exercise, doing pull ups and running on a treadmill with the dog running on a treadmill next to him. He then gets dressed and goes to a door under the stairs leading to the basement. Sam tries to follow him, but he tells her that she cant come down there and shuts her outside. He walks through a room bathed in UV light, grabs a lab coat, and walks into a very well appointed lab. Starting up an Apple computer with a wireless camera he begins to make a video journal for the day. He attaches the wireless camera to a pair of glasses and walks over to a boxy looking structure covered with a black tarp while dictating details of his experiments. Neville pulls off the tarp revealing about thirty stacked cages filled with Infected rats. They are completely hairless and begin to throw themselves at the Plexiglas cage doors as soon as they see him. He sighs and begins to dictate that the anti-virus seems to have had no effect on most of the subjects and seems to have killed several of them. He stops, however, because one of the rats is not throwing itself against the cage door. It is acting, well, rat-like. He looks at it more closely, dictating that it seems to have markedly decreased aggression as well as regaining some pigmentation and the ability to dilate its pupils in the presence of bright light. He makes a note then heads back upstairs, taking off his lab coat.
Opening up an armoire next to the door he grabs a jacket, M4, a set of keys (he has about 20, all for different cars), and the some DVDs and heads outside to his car. As the sun shines down on the city, Neville stops by a video store with several mannequins set up outside and inside dressed in different clothing styles. He seems to have formed some sort of personal relationship with them to cope with being the only human being in the city because he greets them by name as he walks in. There is a very humorous scene here while he is replacing the DVDs that he brought where he looks over and sees a female mannequin wearing very fashionable and expensive clothing standing next to the Adult DVD section. He seems flustered then grabs a pair of DVDs that were next to the ones he returned and makes his way to the front counter. Explaining to the mannequin behind the counter that he is halfway through the Gs he seems like he wants to ask him something about the lady by the adult section but he just shakes his head and walks out to his car.
He then goes to gather corn from a small field while talking to Sam and assuring Sam that he would go talk to the lady tomorrow. After collecting several ears of corn he heads back to his car and a voicover, most likely a repeating broadcast over the radio, tells whoever is listening that he is a survivor and he will be at the docks by the bridge at midday, when the sun is highest in the sky. The message says that he can offer food, shelter, and protection and invites any other survivors to come join him. He pulls up to the pier and makes his way to a desk at the very end, pulling notes and reading glasses out of his satchel and setting them neatly on the table. After a few hours, he takes a break and goes to hit some golf balls off the wing of a Blackbird spy plane sitting on top of a Carrier. Sam is sitting next to him and jumps up, spotting something on the mainland. Neville grabs a pair of binoculars and sweeps the area, stopping when he notices the tail of one of the deer vanishing around a bus. He grabs his jacket and rifle and makes his way over to where he spotted the deer. Flushing the deer out into the open, Neville gives chase while Sam runs ahead of him. The deer cuts under the tattered edge of one of the building-covering plastic sheets and then darts inside of the pitch black building. Sam runs in right after the deer while Neville shouts at her to stop.
Halting at the door Neville desperately whispers Sams name into the darkness. Not hearing a response, he hesitantly makes his way inside, flipping on a flashlight attached to the barrel of his rifle. Sweat pours down his face as he slowly, carefully stalks through the darkened building, fearfully whispering Sams name. He freezes and covers the flashlight with his hand when he hears a sharp, inhuman scream from a stairwell. After getting control of his breathing he again edges towards the door. Using quick bursts of light, moving his hand away from the flashlight for a second then replacing it, he comes around the corner and sees a pool of blood at the bottom landing of the stairs. Slowly making his way up to the top, he follows a trail of blood until he sees the dead deers muzzle poking out from behind a wall. Making his way down the hall with the deers head, which has been torn off, he looks down at the floor and sees millions of dollars just scattered on the ground. While distracted by the cash, he almost walks right into a room with a group of about ten infected arranged in a circle, sleeping. He freezes and seems to be trying to hold in a scream or control his breathing before he slowly makes his way backwards, trying not to make the money crinkle. He reaches the top of the stairs and hears a low whine from Sam from the other direction of the hallway.
Darting into a large room he waves his flashlight over the area until he sees Sam under a desk. He makes his way over to her and tells her to come out and then he notices that she is looking at something to the right of him. Whipping around he catches one of the Infected in the light as it leaps at him, firing several shots and killing it. Not stopping to make sure that its dead he takes off running with Sam following close behind as a chorus of roars and screams signify that the Infected have been woken up by the commotion. Neville spots a small square of light and begins sprinting for it, telling Sam to run ahead. Just as he makes to the light one of the Infected springs onto his back, throwing him forward and through a window two stories up. Neville grabs the Infected and uses it to break his fall, rolling off as the sunlight begins burning the skin of the Infected. It has lost all of its hair and its skin seems to be almost translucent in the light of day. Neville watches it until it dies then makes his way back to the car.
Drawing a small vial of his blood, Neville tells Sam to stay in the car because the dog is immune to the airborne strain of the virus but not from the contact strain. Neville returns to the building and sets up a snare trap with a tarp right inside the door so that it will pull whatever it catches into the open, covered with the tarp. He crushes the vial of his blood on top of the tarp and moves out to the street, taking position on top of a car so he can watch the door. Noises start to emanate from the darkness, growls and hisses, then the distinctive clink of the trap going off. The counterweight Neville had attached to the trap falls and pulls the catch through the door, tangled up in the tarp. Neville stops its struggling with a quick blow from the butt of his rifle. As he looks at the still form in the tarp, another one of the Infected, a male, tries to lunge through the door at him, but is held back by the others. The Infected stares at Neville, ignoring the burns that are beginning to appear on its flesh before allowing the others to pull him back into the darkness of the building. Neville shakes it off and takes the captured Infected to his lab.
Down in his lab, Neville again has his cam-glasses on and has the Infected stretched out on a stainless steel table, chain-reinforced restraint bands around her wrists, waist, and legs and has pumped her full of drugs to keep her sedated, noting that it takes six times as much dosage as a normal human. He is going to inject the infected with the same formula that seemed to work on the rat in the hope that it might have similar effects on humans. He notes that the Infecteds heart rate is 200 BPM and the temperature is 106 degrees before he injects the serum. Watching the monitor with hope in his eyes, Neville is ecstatic when the heart rate and temperature start dropping, until the Infected begins to have a seizure and the heart stops completely. He sighs and injects her with another substance (unknown, maybe original virus?) that causes the Infecteds heart to start back up. Frustrated with the tests failure, Neville wheels the Infected into a Plexiglas containment room and goes upstairs.
Sitting in the car Neville pulls out a map of Manhattan half covered in small xs over each block. He circles the next block in a row and makes his way to the house he marked. Sam goes through and gives a single bark as an all clear, after which Neville makes his way through the house, checking medications and supplies for anything useful and pulling the curtains off of windows to allow sunlight in. As he rummages through the kitchen he opens a cabinet with newspaper clippings on it, one of which is a story about the infection spreading to dogs. He makes his way through the rest of the rooms, coming across a bedroom with a quaranting plastic tent stretched over the bed. The door next to it has a bow and a note that says Do not open till Xmas. Nudging the door open, Neville sees that it is a nursery with two cribs, both with bows on them. He shuts the door and makes his way back to the car.
As he is driving home he glances over and slams on the brakes of the car. Across a bridge he sees one of the mannequins from outside of the video store standing at the other end in front of a large building. He slowly drives towards it until his way is blocked by a fallen light post, then gets out of his car and starts screaming at the mannequin and asking it why its not at the store. Neville demands to know if the mannequin is alive and then opens fire on it with his rifle, blowing the mannequin to pieces and knocking it back into the large puddle of water it was standing in. Slowly walking over to investigate, and keeping an eye on the large hole in the wall of the building, Neville steps into the puddle and then hears the sound of a snare trap going off and sees a taxi cab slide off the bridge, tightening the noose around his feet and slamming his head into the ground as he is pulled into the air.
While he is out, Neville has another flashback, starting where the first one ended. The three unmarked vehicles pull up to the same dock that Neville was sitting at, waiting for survivors. People are being checked for infection and evacuated with Helicopters and Ferrys but there is a huge crowd and they are starting to get desperate. Neville and his family are escorted to the front of the line where a woman with extremely red eyes is asking Neville to take her son with him. Neville ignores the woman and a soldier scans Neville, his daughter, and the dog, showing with a device that checks their eyes for signs of infection. When the soldier scans Zoe, however, she fails and is about to be escorted to the quarantine zone until Neville gets angry and pulls rank to force the man to rescan his wife. She is cleared this time and they make their way to the helicopter waiting to evacuate them. Zoe, Marley, and Samantha, the dog, all get onto the helicopter and they say a prayer with Neville before they take off. As he is stepping away from the helicopter his daughter hands him the puppy. He at first tries to resist but the helicopter is getting ready to take off so he grabs the puppy and moves away from the landing pad, waving to his family while the puppy tries to lick the tears off of his face.
Neville returns to reality still hanging from the trap. Sam is desperately barking at him and his watch alarm is beeping. He groggily looks around and notices that the sun is beginning to set behind the buildings. Reaching for a knife by his side, Neville tries to raise his torso to cut the rope holding him in the air but he cant hold himself up long enough. He tries again and manages to cut the rope, but he lands on the knife, breaking the blade off in his thigh. Neville tries to remove the blade but the pain is too much so he begins to drag himself back to the car. At this point the sun is so low that the only light is a narrow strip across the bridge that is rapidly shrinking. Neville is about halfway to the car when he hears the snarls and growls coming from the hole in the building. The same male that locked eyes with Neville when he captured the female steps out of the darkness, holding back to Infected dogs. The male lets out a roar and releases the dogs that race towards Neville and Sam. They are stopped, however, by the band of rapidly thinning sunlight that lies across the bridge and Neville begins to drag himself even faster, trying to reach the gun in the drivers side door of the car. The sunlight finally disappears as Neville drags himself to one foot and hops to the car pulling the pistol right as the first dog leaps for him. He shoots it dead, then attempts to shoot the one that is fighting with Sam, but a third dog leaps on him, knocking the gun out of his hands. Neville tries to defend himself against the dog, but its superior strength is obviously winning out. Just when the dog is about to get a hold of Nevilles neck, Samantha slams into it from the side, knocking it off Neville and into the side of the car. Freed, Neville jumps for the pistol and shoots the last dog.
Samantha has been injured pretty seriously and limps over and lies down. Neville holds back tears as he tries to comfort Samantha before he picks her up and puts her in the car and takes them home. Down in his lab, Neville lays Sam out on the table, shakily inserting a needle into the vial containing the serum that worked on the rat. Extracting some, he injects it into Samanthas shoulder sits on the floor, cradling her in his arms. He softly starts to sing Dont Worry to her as he strokes her hair. He blinks the tears in his eyes away and looks down at a clump of hair that has come off in his hand. He checks Samantha and sees that the pupils are fully dilated and her gums are rapidly becoming red and inflamed. Samantha starts to let out a low growl and tries to snap at Neville. He holds her head in place and tries to look away as he strangles her with his bare hands, still singing the song and only releasing her when her feet stop scrabbling at the floor of the lab (Im not ashamed to say that this part of the movie had me blinking back quite a few tears). The next day he goes and buries her in the cornfield then goes back to the video store and stands next to the female mannequin in the Adult section. I promised my friend that I would say hello to you. So, hello. At this point tears begin rolling down his cheeks. Please say hello. (Saddest part in the whole movie, fair warning).
That night, at the docks, Neville sits at his desk. A huge pack of Infected begins to stealthily creep up on him, the only sound is the soft padding of their feet. The lead Infected all break out into a run and right when they reach the figure at the desk Neville flips on the extra-bright UV lights on his car and floors it, driving straight through the center of the pack and knocking Infected flying left and right. He whips the car around and drives through again, but one of the Infected lands on the hood of the car and tries to break through the windshield of the car. Neville slams the car into a light pole, flinging the Infected off. The Alpha Male infected then commands two of the pack to slam into the side of Nevilles car. As they begin running towards him and picking up steam, Neville tries to throw the car in reverse, but he gets caught on the remains of the desk and the car flips onto its top when the Infected slam into the side of it. The Alpha Male makes his way to the car and begins to crawl inside snuffling at Neville like an animal. He is just about to tear Neville out of the car when suddenly blindingly bright lights illuminate the area. Neville passes out from the ordeal as a womans voice repeatedly asks him if hes okay. He passes out for a second then groggily begins to wake up as the woman is asking him where he lives and if its safe. Neville tells her the address but instructs her to wait until the sun rises to avoid having the Infected track him back to his house. At this point he passes out and we return to the docks three years earlier.
As Neville is stepping away from the helicopter and waving to his wife and daughter, a pair of fighter jets fly by overhead and launch missiles at the Manhattan bridge, blowing up a center section and effectively quarantining the island. The helicopter begins to take off with Nevilles daughter making a butterfly with her hands again. Neville is waving to her and hears a commotion at the other pier on the dock. A group of people have broken through the containment fence and are trying to swarm the other helicopter taking. Their uneven weight, however, has thrown off the helicopters control and it goes spiraling through the air towards the helicopter with Zoe and Marley. As the helicopters head towards each other Neville lets out a scream and right as they are about to collide
Neville wakes up in his living room. It is daytime, someone has put Shrek on the TV, and he can hear sounds coming from the kitchen. He feels his leg where the knife went in and sees that it has been neatly stitched. Standing up from the couch, Neville hobbles over to a desk and pulls a pistol out of one of the drawers. He makes his way into the kitchen and for a split second he sees his wife and daughter making breakfast, but then he blinks and sees that it is a different woman and her young son. She and her son are both frozen, unsure of how safe Neville is with the pistol that he is carrying. He notices what they are looking at and gingerly places the pistol on the counter. The woman invites him to sit down and says that she cooked some bacon and eggs, apologizing for the eggs because they are powdered. She serves Neville and her son then sits down to eat, introducing herself as Anna (Alice Braga) and her son as Ethan (Charlie Tahan). Neville is at a loss for words because he has been alone the past three years. He asks them where theyve been and what theyre doing here. She tells him that they have been in Maryland but are now making their way Vermont to a Survivors Colony there. He becomes visibly agitated and says that there are no Survivors Colonies. When she tries to argue with him, he smashes his plate down on the floor causing Anna and Ethan to jump up and away from him as Anna pulls her gun. He apologizes, saying that he was saving that bacon and goes upstairs to cool off. Anna lowers her gun and tells Ethan to put the knife that he grabbed back on the table.
When Neville comes back downstairs, Ethan is watching Shrek. Anna keeps a sharp eye on Neville and he begins to speak along with the characters in the movie. After a minute or two of this, he stops and looks sheepish, saying that he really likes Shrek. He goes in the kitchen with Anna where he apologizes for his outbreak and they begin conversing. She realizes that he is the Robert Neville, the famous scientist. He takes her down to his lab and shows her the captured Infected woman who has been packed in ice in an attempt to lower her body temperature to increase the effectiveness of the serum. She asks him if there is any place her son can sleep and Neville carries the son, who is sleeping on the couch, up to his daughters old room. It is still decorated like it was three years ago and Anna looks at some of the pictures sitting on a shelf and asks what the little girls name was. Neville tells her the girls name was Marley, after Bob Marley, and is shocked when the woman says that she has never heard of him. He takes her downstairs and puts one of Bob Marleys CDs on the stereo, explaining that Marley was an inspiration who believed that racism and hatred was like a virus that could only be cured with an injection of love and music. He tells her a story about how Marley was shot in his home two days before a concert promoting peace and still sang at the concert because the people that are trying to ruin this world dont take days off.
Anna then goes into a spiel about how everything was Gods will, and it couldnt have been a coincidence that she decided to come here and turn on her radio to hear his message. Neville gets really pissed off and yells at Anna, explaining that there were 6 billion people on earth when the virus was released. With an infection rate of 90% that means that 5.4 billion people were infected immediately. An immunity rate of only 2% meant that only 12 million people were immune to the virus. He then explains that the infected also turned on the immune, further lessening their numbers. He finishes by saying that there is no God, his fists clutched in rage in front of his face.
Neville stops his rant and cocks his head to the side. From outside the house a long-low roar echoes over the street and he gets a panicked look on his face as he asks Anna if she waited until the sun cam up to return to the house. She says that the sun was coming up but that Neville was losing a lot of blood and needed medical attention so she went to the house to treat him. He curses and explains that the Infected have tracked them down as he runs to the wall and flicks a switch activating a ring of UV spotlights around the house. The Infected already have a running start, however and managed to knock down several of the lights, creating openings before they can cause too much damage. Neville then grabs a remote device and waits until the Infected are in the middle of the barrels before he presses the button, causing all the barrels to ignite and killing dozens of Infected. Unfortunately, the concussion also dazed Neville and wrenched several of the metal shutters off their hinges, allowing two surviving infected to enter the house. Neville runs upstairs and is attacked by one while the other runs upstairs for Anna and Ethan. The Infected latches onto Nevilles shoulder and proceeds to toss him around the room before throwing him back down the stairs. Neville lands next to an umbrella holder which also holds his M4 rifle. He grabs the rifle and proceeds to open fire on the Infected who has followed him down the stairs. The Infected dives into the kitchen and Neville sights on a pallet of the squirt bottles he was seen with at the beginning of the movie. A single shot detonates the bottles, sending the Infected flying out of the kitchen before it scrambles back upstairs away from Nevilles rifle. Neville follows it up and kills it before it can escape out the window. The rifle is now empty so Neville throws it on the floor as he looks out the window and sees the Alpha Male staring at him.
Hearing a crash from upstairs, Neville remembers the other Infected that went after Anna and Ethan. He races up the stairs and pauses at the top when he hears a crash coming from his bedroom. Neville peers around the corner and sees one of the Infected crawling on the ceiling opening up a hole to the roof while Anna and Ethan hide under a dresser. Nevilles pistol sits on the nightstand and he starts moving towards it when Ethan lets out a peep. The Infected stops what its doing and drops down from the roof to hunt down the sound and Neville dives for the pistol and shoots the Infected in the chest, killing it. At this point the Alpha Male sends another wave of even more Infected at the house and Neville leads Anna and Ethan down to the basement lab area, locking the door behind them, and telling them to get into the Plexiglas room where Neville was keeping the Infected woman that he was experimenting on. They all run in and are shocked to see that the woman is showing signs of the infection reversing itself. Right then, the other Infected burst through the door to the basement and Neville closes the Plexiglas door just as they reach it. One of the Infected begins throwing himself at the door trying to break through until the Alpha Male picks him up and throws him across the room.
The Alpha Male then proceeds to start bashing the door with his head, eventually causing the glass to splinter and look like a distorted butterfly. His daughters voice runs through his head, telling him to look at the butterfly. He looks over at Anna and sees a butterfly tattoo on the side of her neck. Scrambling through the medical supplies, Neville pulls out a syringe and vial and proceeds to draw some blood from the Infected female. Telling Anna and Ethan to get into a small opening (chimney?), Neville hands Anna the vial and tells her that its the cure and that the Infected wont stop trying to break through the door. Anna tells him that there is room enough for all of them inside but Neville closes the door, telling her to wait until daylight to come out. He then turns around and pulls a grenade out of one of the other drawers and faces the Alpha Male. When the Alpha Male is almost through the glass Neville charges at the same time as the Male while pulling the pin on the grenade, detonating the Alpha Male and all the other Infected in the basement.
The next scene shows Anna and Ethan driving through rural Vermont countryside in the fall. The leaves on the trees are bright red-orange and there is no sign of the Infected. They pull up to a large steel door set into a concrete wall. Exiting the car, they walk up to the door and hear a beep before the door opens to reveal two armed military men guarding the entrance of the sanctuary. A voiceover tells about how Robert Neville gave his life for the cure while Anna hands it off to someone in the sanctuary, presumably a scientist.
--------- A virus is harnessed and used as a cure for cancer. Months later the recipients of the cure start to develop rabies-like symptoms as the virus mutates. Will Smith's character Robert Neville, and his dog Sam are survivors. Neville survives due to his immunity to both airborne and contact strains of the virus. As far as Neville knows, he is the only uninfected person in New York, and possibly the world. He spends his time trying to make contact with other survivors, working on a cure to the virus using his blood. He kidnaps an infected, Alpha female to try a antidote on. It fails, but he keeps her to continue his experiments. His dog is infected (dogs can only be infected by the contact strain) when Neville gets caught in a trap. He wants revenge but two survivors save him and the woman, Anna (Alice Braga) and the boy Ethan (Charlie Tahan) tell him about other survivors and a colony in Vermont. He doesnt believe them and starts to yell at her but he is interrupted by an attack by the Alphas. Neville, Anna and Ethan make it to the basement laboratory where they see that the final experiment on the Alpha female was successful. He draws a vile of blood from the Alpha and then gives it to Anna. The other alphas have broken down the door and are smashing there way into the alcove to get at them. There is a small door at the back and Neville helps Anna and Ethan into the safe space. He pulls a grenade from the desk and pulls the pin. The Alphas brake through to him just as the explosion rocks the building. The final scene is Anna and Ethan driving through Vermont and arriving at the colony with the antidote. There is a narration that explains the Legend of Robert Neville and his hope for humanity.
Cast
Will Smith - Robert Neville
Emma Thompson - Dr. Krippen
Alice Braga - Anna
Charlie Tahan - Ethan
Salli Richardson - Zoe Neville
Willow Smith - Marley Neville
Leonard A. Anderson - Sgt. Everrs
Abbey and Kona - Sam (Sammuel) the Dog
Dash Mihok - Infected Alpha Male
Joanna Numata - Infected Alpha Female
Pat Fraley - President (voice)
Mike Patton - Creature Vocal Effects
Francis Lawrence confirmed that there will be a prequel and that Will Smith will be reprising his role. He stated that this movie would reveal what happens to Neville before the infected take over New York. D. B. Weiss has been recruited to write the script, while Lawrence would direct "if we figure out the story." Smith stated the film would have Neville and his team going from New York City to Washington, D.C. and back again, as they made their last stand.[64] The film will again explore the premise of what it's like to be alone, as Lawrence explained, ". . . the tough thing is, how do we do that again and in a different way?"[65] The film is slated for release in 2011.[66][67] It has been confirmed that the title of the prequel is "I Am Legend: Awakening." Filming
The Brooklyn Bridge served as a location in I Am Legend, at which there was a $5 million scene filmed, the most expensive scene to date in New York City.
Akiva Goldsman decided to move the story from Los Angeles to New York City to take advantage of locations that would more easily show emptiness.[6] Goldsman explained, "L.A. looks empty at three o'clock in the afternoon, [but] New York is never empty . . . it was a much more interesting way of showing the windswept emptiness of the world."[23] Warner Bros. initially rejected this idea because of the logistics,[18] but Francis Lawrence was determined to shoot on location, to give the film a natural feel that would benefit from not shooting on soundstages. Lawrence went to the city with a camcorder, and filmed areas filled with crowds. Then, a special effects test was conducted to remove all those people. The test had a powerful effect on studio executives.[21] Michael Tadross convinced authorities to close busy areas such as the Grand Central Terminal viaduct, several blocks of Fifth Avenue and Washington Square Park.[18] The film was shot primarily in the anamorphic format, with flashback scenes shot in Super 35.[29]
Filming began on September 23, 2006.[30] The Marcy Avenue Armory in Williamsburg was used for the interior of Neville's home,[23] while Greenwich Village was used for the exterior.[15] Other locations include the Tribeca section of Lower Manhattan, the aircraft carrier Intrepid, the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx and St. Patrick's Cathedral.[6] Weeds were imported from Florida and were strewn across locations to make the city look like it had overgrown with them.[18] The closure of major streets was controversial with New Yorkers. Will Smith said, "I don't think anyone's going to be able to do that in New York again any time soon. People were not happy. That's the most middle fingers I've ever gotten in my career."[15]
A bridge scene was filmed for six consecutive nights in January on the Brooklyn Bridge to serve as a flashback scene in which New York's citizens evacuate the city. Shooting the scene consumed $5 million of the film's reported $150 million budget, which was the most expensive shot in the city to date.[citation needed] The scene, which had to meet requirements from fourteen government agencies, involved 250 crew members and 1,000 extras, including 160 National Guard members.[31][32] Also present were several Humvees, three Stryker armored vehicles, a 110-foot (34�m) cutter, a 41-foot (12�m) utility boat, and two 25-foot (7.6�m) Response Boat Small craft, as well as other vehicles including taxis, police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances.[33] Filming concluded on March 31, 2007.[30]
Reshoots were conducted around November 2007. Lawrence noted, "We weren't seeing fully rendered shots until about a month ago. The movie starts to take on a whole other life. It's not until later that you can judge a movie as a whole and go, 'Huh, maybe we should shoot this little piece in the middle, or tweak this a little bit.' It just so happened that our re-shoots revolved around the end of the movie."[34]
Alternate ending
The tone of the film's ending was altered before the film's release, especially the stand-off between Neville and the infected in his laboratory. Visual effects supervisor Janek Sirrs recounts the original ending starting with the stand-off: "At that point, Neville's-and the audience's-assumptions about the nature of these creatures are shown to be incorrect. We see that they have actually retained some of their humanity. There is a very important moment between the Alpha Male and Neville. The Alpha Male slapped his hand on the glass and smeared it revealing a butterfly shaped imprint." Neville realizes that the Alpha Male is identifying the infected woman he was experimenting on by a butterfly tattoo, and that the Alpha Male wants her back. Demonstrating that he will cease fighting and return her, Neville is allowed to approach them, with the Alpha Male ordering the infected not to touch him. Neville brings the Alpha Female back to consciousness, still infected, due to him having removed the cure, and the Alpha Male embraces her; David Schaub stated, "Then, when Neville finally turns the Alpha Female over to the Alpha Male, there is this little love moment between the two of them." Neville and the Alpha Male then exchange stares; Neville apologizes to them, which the Alpha Male acknowledges before the infected leave. He then looks at the photos of the infected he has experimented on and killed, and he realizes that he is the monster of their legends: the infected think of him as someone who hunts down and kills their people. The original final shot follows Neville, Anna, and Ethan as they cross the remnants of the George Washington Bridge in hopes of finding other survivors, accompanied by a recording from Anna telling possible survivors that there is hope, and Neville knows the compounds of the cure, meaning he can recreate it and help humanity survive and rebuild, thus establishing his legend.[4]
Directed by Francis Lawrence Produced by Akiva Goldsman
David Heyman
James Lassiter
Neal H. Moritz Written by Screenplay:
Akiva Goldsman
Mark Protosevich
Novel:
Richard Matheson Starring Will Smith
Alice Braga
Dash Mihok
Salli Richardson
Willow Smith
Charlie Tahan
Abbey and Kona Music by James Newton Howard Cinematography Andrew Lesnie Editing by Wayne Wahrman Studio Village Roadshow Pictures
Weed Road Pictures
Overbrook Entertainment Distributed by Warner Bros. Release date(s) December 14, 2007 Running time Theatrical cut:
100 min.
Alternate cut:
104 min. Country �United States Language English Budget $150,000,000 Gross revenue $585,349,010[1]
OWN ANALYSIS
There are some good points, but there are too many ineffectual aspects that keep I Am Legend from being the sophisticated film it was clearly meant to be.
Will Smith shows some promise trying to find a cure for a horrific virus, but somehow the plot becomes Shrek, Bob Marley and God trying to save the world.
I Am Legend Movie Synopsis
Robert Neville (Will Smith) is a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable... and manmade. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City... and maybe the world. But he is not alone. He is surrounded by "the Infected" -- victims of the plague who have mutated into carnivorous beings who can only exist in the dark and who will devour or infect anyone or anything in their path. For three years, Neville has spent his days scavenging for food and supplies and faithfully sending out radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. All the while, the Infected lurk in the shadows, watching Neville?s every move, waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind?s last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood. But his blood is also what The Infected hunt, and Neville knows he is outnumbered and quickly running out of time.
MY THOUGHTS.
From my personal point of view for 'Smith' to play a character that's alone throughout an entire film and to pass it off so well, he deserves a round of applause. What attracts me to the film so deeply is not just the story but the elegance of how well the film adapts and plays out. The audience are straight away emotionally connecting with Robert Neville (Smith) and i found myself striving for him to find the viral cure and some means means of civilization. The audience are teared through themes of honour, pride, passion, love, hate, determine, i felt as though i was close to shedding a tear many times throughout the film.
Up until the very end of the film things got gradually worse for smith. For me the most sad but beautiful shot in the entire film is when 'Robert's' god 'Samantha' gets killed and smith drives off in his SUV. The camera pans out from Smith to show a spectacular view of road and cars just justifieing how alone Smith really is in the world and how emotionally, mentally and physically lonely he is. Not only is he the last man in New York but his only means of interaction that happened to be with his dog are also lost, even the most manly of men became in touch with the femanine side there.
Overall i rate this film 9.5/10, to me the only downside to the film was that i found it to be a little short in length. My favourite aspect has to be that ironic contrast of 'Robert Neville' not only living inside New York but in 'Washington Square'. In 'Henry James' ' Novel 'Washington Square' the characters within the novel loose everything they have and own much like 'Robert' does. Within the novel only one character composes them self (Catherine) and strives for what she believes in. Catherine 'won't' and doesn't let her farther take control of her. Robert Neville won't let everything destruct and leave the world to fray, 'I won't let this happen.' Catherine and Robert share many comparisons in character and are unquestionably alike. Bear in mind 'I am legend' was wrote after 'Washington Square'.
A definate must see film, real action, real emotional and plenty of determination. KP.
Analysis Of I Am Legend
The way the world is seen varies with each passing person. What is observed as good from one may be the damning pathway to hell for another. Many times these beliefs are instilled upon us at a very early age which can result with a twisted outlook on life that we had little to no control over. As we grow older we are than further influenced through our religion (or lack of), culture, and passed experiences. With that in mind, it is easy to see that reality can be just as interchangeable and further raises the difficult question of what is real? Robert Neville, a man who on a daily basis struggles with the reality of being the last man on earth often only manages to keep going by holding on to the intangibles of hope, denial, and fear.
Robert Neville is a tough man. He has many facets to his character that range from war veteran to husband and father. All of these sides shine through as you learn the story of how he watched his family and friends die from a mysterious disease and then one by one watched them return from their graves with the need and obsessive thirst for blood; eventually only his blood. So this bizarre reality that he faces could hardly seem real, especially for a blue-collared, straight forward man like Robert Neville. He ultimately is the last person living (that he knows of) and now has to tackle the major problem of staying alive when hundreds of vampires are solely after his blood. He essentially makes his house a fortress that no vampire can infiltrate. Although they can't get to him they still come every night torturing him with cat-calls and yells that truly drive him mad. By far he is tormented most from his once good friend Ben Cortman who comes every night calling his name. Every night they destroy something and every day Neville has to fix it. As time passes he gets better with keeping up his home and learns more about the vampires, what caused them, how he can really kill them, and why he was not afflicted by...