Hey all. Kurt here with round five of Cinema de Gym. When I walked into my gym's screening of I Am Legend, otherwise known as one of the greatest movies ever made, it was just in time for sole survivor Will Smith's morning workout regimen. Y'know – the one that shows off his especially cut physique, which had a beaming Jada gushing her wifely approval to the press (or was that for Ali?). In any case, it was a good motivator with which to start, my elliptical-bound self facing the day with Will and his treadmilling dog. I do love these morning-routine sequences, which, if done well, can dole out oodles of narrative and character development with nary a spoken word. (My mind goes right to a particular season premiere of Lost, wherein we woke up with a character, partook in his a.m. ritual, then flew up, up, up a laddered pipe only to gasp, “He's in the hatch!”)
After tending to some ill-tempered rats in his basement lab (he's testing cures for that apocalyptic zombie rage virus, you'll remember), Will grabs some rifles from a locked cabinet, whistles for his pooch (Sam) and leaves the house. Outside, it's revealed that he lives within spitting distance of the Washington Square Arch, and in this moment it hits me that I walked by this very address just a couple weeks ago. Honestly, I don't know how you New York film lovers don't just completely lose your s**t on a daily basis. Maybe you do. It's crazy. You live inside the movies. Anyway...
Last man's best friend
Will and Sam take the SUV to the video store, presumably a regular errand that offers a sliver of normalcy and some much-needed sweet escape (so long as they don't rent Life After People). This, I believe, is the first scene that truly introduces us to the film's keen ability to apply considerable weight to inanimate and/or nonhuman things, be them Sam or the mannequins Will regards as everyday people. In the video store, he calls the cashier mannequin by name, and all but blushes while pretending the nearby female mannequin is giving him the eye. The film finds both comic relief and an oft-profound sense of loneliness in such scenes, and Will knows just how to play them: straight, but with bubbling pain. It's a similar pain to that of Tom Hanks's Wilson-loving cast away, and it's the same pain that hurts so good (dramatically, I mean) when – SPOILER ALERT – Sam goes viral and has to be put down.
But I'm getting way ahead of myself here, as things were nowhere near that dire moment during the little slice I watched. Not long after the video store, Will is golfing on a pier, broadcasting that call for survivors that was ubiquitous during the film's marketing campaign (“You are not alone...”). Broadcast finished, Will and Sam spot a deer amidst an ocean of abandoned cars and begin the hunt. Rounding a corner, Sam gets ahead of Will and follows his prey into the movie's no-no place of shadow, which I suppose we can now consider a bit of foreshadowing...
Conclusions?
1. Watching scenes of people working out while working out actually makes you want to work out!
2. I'm really looking forward to moving to New York, so I can live in the movies, too.
3. Will could've really used a little Kim Cattrall in that big lonely city.
And the question we all want answered: What movies would you rent if you were the last person alive?