The Movie Nut

"I Am Legend" is the third attempt by filmmakers to translate Richard Matheson's 50-year-old novel of apocalyptic terror. In 1964, Italian film director Ubaldo Ragona pitted Vincent Price against a hoard of bacteriainfected vampires in "The Last Man on Earth." In 1971, Hollywood released "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston. In the midst of Cold War hysteria, the disease was replaced by biological fallout. The vampires turned into Goth, black-robed cultish figures who shunned the daylight. Heston's character, a military scientist who'd managed to perfect a cure just after the nick of time, was immune to the disease.

Will Smith plays the military scientist, Robert Neville, who's likewise immune, this time to a runaway virus that mutates from a potential cancer cure. One can't help but feel all that pesky stemcell paranoia at play, although that's about all the controversy the film chooses to muster.

Once again the virus has caused acute vampirism, and for much of the film Neville fears he's the last human alive. He spends much of his time in an underground laboratory, trying to perfect a serum to turn these creatures back into humans. At night he locks himself and his dog behind iron shutters and listens to the blood-seekers howling in the streets outside.

By the way, it's not easy to top a Will Smith performance, but a 3-year-old German shepherd, a ragged-eared kennel survivor named Abby, manages to do so. Seems that Abby just might be the last pooch on Earth, too.

Computergenerated animation has come a long way since 1971; in particular, the film's rendition of Manhattan, after three years of neglect, is nothing short of astounding. Smith and Abby do a decent job surviving, but the film's biggest drawback will have sci-fi fans feeling they've been in this pickle before. Despite a nice sanitybending performance by Smith, I left the theater with an overwhelming sense of redundancy.

Both "28 Days Later" and "Resident Evil" have covered the same ground, and vampires (or their kissing cousins, the living dead) have proliferated over the last decade. "Van Helsing," "Blade" and "30 Days of Night" have made similar statements. (Genre fans might also remember the fang-free "The World, the Flesh and the Devil" and the trippy "The Quiet Earth.") But few films of late have the gravitas to portray these blood-seeking night stalkers as groundbreaking, even in terms of sheer twitch factor. "I Am Legend" tries hard, with first-rate visual acuity, but don't expect uncharted terrain.

Much ballyhoo has already been made about the Church's adversity to author Philip Pullman's 1995 "Dark Materials" trilogy. And grumblings also abound over the filmmakers' reluctance to unleash Pullman's full disdain of authority, pretty much assuring that few fans will be completely happy with "The Golden Compass"- the porridge either being too hot or too cold.

The best news about "The Golden Compass" is newcomer Dakota Blue Richards, who plays stubborn protagonist Lyra Belacqua, an 11yearold orphan living in a parallel universe where people's souls, called "daemons," take the form of animal companions. Kidnap a daemon from its owner and you have an unhappy situation indeed. And that's what "The Golden Compass" is all about. It's a beautifully rendered film, full of tension and conflict, and I suspect younger fantasy fans will come in droves.

However, like "I Am Legend," those young fans (and others) may feel an overwhelming sense of familiarity. Fantasy is a hot commodity these days, and after the success of both "Harry Potter" and "The Lord of the Rings," it's no wonder. Hollywood's churning out such tales by the trainload. I remind you of "Stardust," "Lady in the Water" and "Eragon."

In "The Golden Compass," one senses touches of "Lemony Snicket" and "The Chronicles of Narnia." Trailers preceding the film hawked both the upcoming "Narnia" sequel and "Inkheart," about a man (Brendan Fraser) with the unlikely ability to suck characters from book pages and thrust them into reality. The fantasy locomotive has a full head of steam.

Oh, and for the devout, I found no more adversity to religion than to any other authoritarian organization- political, social or spiritual. Should any one sect recognize an uncomfortable similarity to themselves in the film's portrayal, e.g., the desire to suck human free will from the minions- well, maybe there's a bigger problem at play than public relations. I mean, anybody who tells another individual not to see a particular film is a cruel and terrible- oh, wait, that's my job. Never mind.

I did feel that a good deal of the material was trimmed, that the film could have been longer, hence more cohesive. Both Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig have roles that seem rudely truncated, languishing somewhere on a cutting room floor.

Also be forewarned that "The Golden Compass" is the first act of an intended trilogy and much has been left for the next installment. Still, in the realm of fantasy, "The Dark Materials" trilogy may have the legs to be a wellcrafted fanciful yarn. My advice? Choose your alternate universes wisely. One must be wary of burning out on Hollywood's overly ambitious metaphysical clutter.