My eternal friend, the beloved Colonel Giddens, has horrible taste in movies. I swear, I love her; as human beings go she’s the pinnacle of social evolution. We’ve shared many films together, each inflicting untold horrors on the other. Payback is a bitch, and one of these days I’m going to find that copy of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and the Colonel will pay (oh yes, she will pay) for her enthusiastic recommendation of last year’s Transformers.

In the meantime, you and I can has out the Colonel’s latest recommendation: I Am Legend, a film I dismissed out of hand once I learned the identity of its star. Nothing personal against Mr. Smith; I’ve never met the man. And if, on some planet, on some distant day, I ever have the occasion, I won’t let the fact I that think his religion is batshit get in the way of being polite. But let’s face it: most of his movies are forgettable trash at best (Wild Wild West), roaring monstrosities at worst (Bad Boys). Memories of his reign as the Fresh Prince of Bell-Air will forever hobble his attempts to be a “serious actor.” What is a man named Smith to do? Another Men in Black sequel? Perish the thought.

No. Instead, Will Smith has once again transubstantiated into a sci-fi/action hero. A metamorphosis struck him in preparation for (the undeservedly-named) I, Robot with results that were predictably cringe-inducing. I admit it: I cringed in anticipation of this film, too. It could’ve been much worse. Had it been rushed into production...oh, say…four years ago…it would have been. Such is tonight’s slim, silver lining.

Our corner of the world is all-too familiar with this story. Originally a novella written by mid-twentieth century genre-bender Richard Matheson (the man who wrote all those Twilight Zone episodes the sci-fi channel keeps re-running), I Am Legend follows the frequently-drunken adventures of the Last Man on Earth, a hapless schmuck from Compton named Robert Neville.

A brief word on the text: Matheson wrote I Am Legend in 1954, back when white people still lived in Compton. The novella, for those not in the know, is a fairly stark examination of the lengths one man must go to remain healthy, living and sane in a post-apocalyptic world, where a great plague has decimated most of the human race and turned the rest into bloodthirsty vampires. They stalk the night streets outside Robert’s door, feeding on any living thing they can catch…or each other, in the absence of anything else. Each night they pound away at Robert’s barricaded house, while inside he desperately tries to drown them out with classical music and whiskey, failing every night. Over the course of the story, loneliness and desperation drive Robert to begin studying the creatures who’ve taken over his world. He discoveries make up the most holistic explanation of vampirism I’ve ever seen, elegant for its brevity and simplicity. I’ll let you discover them for yourself.

And, as with most of the movies I review, the book need not concern us further. Does it go without saying that this movie bears no resemblance to the book it was supposedly based upon, beyond a seeming coincidence of title? I shouldn’t have to say that. You’re all smart kids with good backgrounds. You know what’s what.

But did you know that this was an American film made in a post-9/11 world? I’ll bet you could’ve guessed. Indeed, I contend that a movie of this nature could only exist in a post-9/11 world, a product of the schizophrenic, infantile, traumatized culture that dominates our land, turning all our stories into shallow pap and all our heroes into monsters.

We open with a cable news anchor interviewing a lady doctor, Dr. Krippen. Dr. Krippen claims to have cured cancer. How? By “reprogramming” the measles virus into a sort of biological highway patrol officer. “Imagine the virus as a very fast car being driven by a very bad man,” she tells the talking head. “Obviously that’s gonna do a lot of damage…Now, if you replace that bad man with a cop—” Then as far as I’m concerned, doc, you’ve swapped bad for bad. How’s your pork, Dr. Krippen? Good? As we fade to black I think, Well, gee, doc, what could possibly go wrong with a great plan like that?

Three years later, Will Smith is the Last Man on Earth, hunting herds of deer through the deserted, weed-infested streets of New York City in a new (to us—this is 2012, so from his perspective it’s a late model) Ford GT. You’ll never see this car again; it disappears from the rest of the film and leaves me wondering, What the fuck is it with Will Smith movies and cars? I hope to all the non-existent gods this doesn’t turn into another military recruitment/car commercial .

No, thankfully. The sun is setting. It’s time for Robert Neville, the Last Man on Earth, to haul ass back inside his posh Washington Square Park townhome. Time to give Sam, the Last Dog on Earth (because he just has to have one) a bath in the tub. As night falls and his watch incessantly beeps, Neville storm-shutters his windows and curls up inside his tub next to Sam. Gradually, in the most effective scene of the film, the disembodied screams of the nightbreed filter down the city streets as the undead citizens of New York emerge from the lightless hiding places and do…whatever it is they do. We’re not shown. I can only say that the music of these children of the night would reduce even Dracula to tears.

Robert, though, sleeps on ‘till morning, ignorant of its pleasing tones. After a gratuitously shirtless work-out it’s down to the basement lab, where Dr. Neville begins what is obviously yet another step in his quest to cure the “Krippen Virus.”

The results are generally bad…most of his “cures” either kill the host or fail to kill the virus…save one. “Begin human trials,” he speaks into whatever hidden microphone he’s using to keep records of these experiments. After one successful rat test he’s beginning human trials. Oh, if only real-life scientists behaved like movie scientists. Then all our cars would fall apart after twenty thousand miles, satellites would fall from the sky and prescription allergy pills would came complete with side effects that might include vomiting, sleepless, and/or diarrhea.

Never mind. Dr. Neville’s human trials involve setting snares in lightless places, bating traps with his own blood. This, in contrast to the book (I know I said it need not concern us further, but sue me), is just about the only proactive step our Smith-Neville takes against the dark creatures that were once his fellow men. We do not see Smith, the last (black) man on earth, mercilessly slaughtering the vampiric hordes during their daytime sleep, that way a certain Vincent Price once did. Dr. Neville is no Daywalker, and like any decent American his guns are only for huntin’ up game…or for self defense. Imagine if a white man (say, oh, I don’t know, Hugh Jackman) had landed the part of Dr. Neville and “KV” turned its hosts as black as the ace of spades.

In any case, Neville’s snipe hunt succeeds. With his brand new test subject heavily sedated, he begins human trials. And in a fine example of movie Science, Dr. Neville falls into a hissy-fit when his compound fails to cure the subject.

The rest of the movie proceeds rather like you’d expect, and for a very good reason: it has no idea what to do with itself. I don’t really consider the following a capital S Spoiler. I give the Alert out of courtesy to the mentally impaired…though even they should be able to guess the outcome of this film, if they can remember even a handful of movies.

Neville’s isolation and workaholicism finally push him to do something stupid. Sam, the Last Dog on Earth, dies as a result. Neville takes this poorly, inspiring an action sequence, and just when it looks like all hope is lost Our Hero is rescued. By a woman named Anna (Alice Braga) and a child name Ethan (Charlie Tahan). The Last Nuclear Family on Earth congeals at Neville’s townhouse and, once Ethan’s tucked off to bed, its time for Anna to reveal that everything’s really alright after all. There’s a Survivors Colony somewhere in Vermont, free and open to everyone uninfected. Life goes on. It’s all part of God’s glorious plan. We can hear Him speak to us if we listen.

”There is no God,” Neville retorts…only so he can be proven wrong by the end of the film, after climactic Special Effects sequence which puts the skids on further theological discussions. Will Our Hero (no pun intended) also hit upon a last-minute, miraculous cure for the plague before the final bell tolls? Gosh, Davey, I wonder…

I digress into plot-pointing because this film does not offer much up for analysis. There’s very little fat on this movie’s bones, and little meat, either. This is a story stripped down by Hollywood carrion-eaters, rebuilt into a shambling, Frankenstein message of Hope.

But before the Hope must come despair, and a whole lot of watching Will Smith go through the motions of post-Apocalyptic life. He returns movies to the neighborhood video store, passing a quick, “Hi,” to the mannequins he’s set up amongst the isles. He breaks-and-enters into deserted apartments, hunting up supplies as plague sheets flutter around empty beds in broken-window draft of sunny, sleepy New York. Every day at noon he announces his presence on all AM frequencies from his broadcasting desk in the South Street Seaport. He plays golf off of the tailfin of an SR-71. He and Sam, the Last Dog on Earth, go hunting for dinner.

And in the thrill of the chase, Sam follows their prey (Bambi’s uncle, or cousin, probably) into the bowls of a darkened, deserted building. Robert Neville hesitates…his breathing shutters…he stage-whisper-shouts…and in a very human moment that really sells this movie’s monsters, he almost leaves the dog behind. “I gotta go, Sam,” he says to the darkness. “I gotta go.”

Instead, he douses the light on his gun and walks inside. The tense scene that follows is the highlight of the film, and our introduction to what someone in the film will later call “the darkseakers.” The word “vampire” does not appear in this movie, which is fitting, considering I Am Legend’s monsters bear no resemblance to their literary counterparts. (At least Ben Cortman could speak.) They are children of the recent big-ticket zombie pictures I’ve studiously ignored: weightless, acrobatic, CGI characters with an inexplicable vulnerability to ultra-violet light. Dangerous in the dark, but a simple bullet will put them down for the count. Not terribly dynamic foes, really; vampires rarely are, outside of the Buffyverse. But these darkseakers are almost indistinguishable in these days of hunter-killer zombie pictures. If this were 1998 this movie would be innovative. Alas it is 2008, and it is merely derivative.

And, in the end, Hopeful. Of course it’s Hopeful. You can’t make a movie without a happy ending these days. Damnit, people, we’re still at War. We have to do whatever vacuous thing it is we can do these days. “Light up the darkness,” or some such damn thing.

Indeed, the Last Man on Earth (at least as Matheson originally conceived him) does stand against the darkness. He is lighthouse keeper of the past: the sunlit, day-bright, now-lost world where wives and children still live and breathe and vampires don’t exist. They are the dark standing against him, the incarnate onslaught of the present, already pregnant with an inhospitable future, feeding ruthlessly upon the past. The Last Man on Earth fights to resurrect the past, alone in his house of artifacts, rationality, and science. Matheson at least grasped that this is an impossible fight. The past is dead and cannot return to life except as farce, or as shambling horror. The Last Man on Earth refuses to do what the rest of us in the real world are continually forced to do: move on to the new place, whatever that might be. Instead the new place, and the new people who live there and call it their home, move on him, and Robert Neville must face up to the fact that you can’t go home again.

Except in Hollywood, of course. There the belligerent infantilism of American popular culture insists that you can have your cake and be it, too. That everything will work out in the end if you just hold your breath until you turn blue and click your heals together. Even if your dog, wife, of child dies there’s still the great, benevolent Sky Daddy, and we can always count on Him to whisper sweet nothings in your ear. After all, He has a plan.

A plan that, apparently, involves rekindling the ashy remains of Dr. Robert Neville’s faith in…something. Bob Marley, perhaps? Would’ve been nice, but…no. It’s the same kind of shallow Hollywood Deism you’d see in M. Night Shyamalan’s Mel Gibson movie, Signs. Because you can’t make a movie without Hope, and you can’t have Hope without a little nod to God…a god left purposely vague enough for everyone to at least agree upon a little bit…right?

Well, no. Because, as with Signs, the only gods at work here are the filmmakers—the small army of deities that, through their own strange alchemy, turned a few thousand feet of nitrate into a coherent story. And then they have to go and mess with everything by throwing in a deux ex machina. If you’re going to write yourself into a post-apocalyptic corner, I expect a little bit more of an ending than, “Oh, don’t worry, it’s alright. God has a plan for all this meaningless suffering.”

Well, of course He does—or They do, in this case. They also have shooting scripts, scene-clappers, day-boards, clip-boards, light- and sounding-boards, computers, cameras, Starbucks coffee cups with philosophical sayings on the sides…all this and so much more. I knew that going into things. I’m watching a movie, for petessake, so don’t assume I’ll be so easily deflected by meaningless sentiments. If I want that, I can read Chicken Soup for the Misanthropic Soul.

Apart from that, I have no complaints about this movie. James Berardinelli of Real Views rightly called it “workmanlike,” which is movie-reviewer code for “pretty, but there’s not much here.” Cinematic empty calories. When we’re alone with Will Smith at least we have time to empathize with the Last Man on Earth and his skin-of-his-teeth grip on sanity. It is a pretty picture. You’d never guess director Francis Lawrence came from the MTV generation…until the final action sequence. “Workmanlike” is just the word to describe his largely-uninteresting camerawork. Kudos to him, then, for not getting in the way. And nuts to you, Francis, for letting the script run off its rails.

Further nuts go to the screenwriters. I’ve seen Mark Protosevich’s work before. He wrote The Cell, and I feel right in assuming all the good ideas of this script come from him. Akiva Goldsmith and I are old enemies, going all the way back to his “work” on Batman and Robin, “work” that earns him voodoo curses to this day. That he can still hold a pen should tell you something about the veracity of voodoo…unless there are other, higher forces at work, protecting Goldsmith’s career. What evil entities would benefit from this much watered down pap? This much junk science? This much pandering to my former homeland, the fly-over states (including Orange County, California)? I mean, come on—this man can write Starsky and Hutch and Lost In Space and still he has a career? He’s not human I tell you!

Still, notwithstanding Akiva Goldsmith’s species of origin (or his possible alliance with otherworldly forces) I’m was quite ready to give this film a passing grade…but that fucking ending. Yet another movie that doesn’t end, so much as stop. That gives up when it was just getting good. That serves up a tepid, sea grass soup of warmed-over hope in a silver bowel rimmed with gold leaf set on a century oak table.

Watch it if you honestly have nothing else to do. But don’t expect any serious surprises along the way. Because if there’s one thing Hollywood excels at these days, its defying my already low expectations.