Sam and Robert Neville (Will Smith) fight to survive the zombie apocalypse in New York City in I AM LEGEND
SEE/CHANGE: I AM LEGEND (Francis Lawrence, 2007)
Central Park
Landscape between Sheep Meadow & 72nd St. Cross Dr.
Wednesday, August 24, free, 8:00
Festival runs August 22-27
www.centralparknyc.org
www.iamlegendmovie.com
Director Francis Lawrence’s modern-day update of Richard Matheson’s classic 1954 novel, I Am Legend, is a tense, nonstop thriller, liberally adapted by screenwriters Mark Protosevich (The Cell) and Akiva Goldsman (I, Robot). While the book was a claustrophobic masterpiece, the film opens things up dramatically, with Robert Neville (Will Smith), the last survivor of a supposed cancer cure that turned into a deadly virus, riding the streets of New York City every day in a fancy car with his dog, Sam. In addition to hunting wild game that leaps through Midtown, Neville, an army scientist who is still searching for an antidote in his makeshift basement laboratory, kills cells of infected vampiric beings that have more in common with the violent creatures of 28 Days Later than the slow-moving zombies of Night of the Living Dead. Every night Neville barricades himself and Sam into their apartment overlooking Washington Square Park and dreams of the events that brought him to this point, centered on his desperate attempt to save his wife (Salli Richardson) and daughter (Willow Smith, Will’s real-life daughter). I Am Legend was actually filmed in New York, with pivotal scenes shot in and around Madison Square Park, Grand Central Terminal, the South Street Seaport, and a barren Park Ave., lending it a stark, frightening reality. Smith excels as Neville, his eyes quickly shifting from hope to disappointment, from promise to pain, and Lawrence (Constantine, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) does a marvelous job of translating the book’s inner monologue into a postapocalyptic visual nightmare. (The story was previously made into the 1964 film The Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price.) I Am Legend is screening August 24 at the Central Park Conservancy Film Festival, which runs August 22 to 27, beginning with School of Rock (August 22) and The Last Dragon (August 23) in Marcus Garvey Park, then moving to Central Park for I Am Legend, Tootsie (August 25), Desperately Seeking Susan (August 26), and Stuart Little (August 27).