I Am Legend Elevates Will Smith to the Pantheon of American Movie Stars

****1/2 (out of 5)

1988--"Parents Just Don't Understand" was a huge rap hit, possibly the biggest rap hit to that point. But the hip hop community wasn't in love with the recording, because it was a funny little novelty hit and not a serious message song. The Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff continued to make music like this record and laughed all the way to the bank. Smith was 20 when I was 22 and he made his first million at that time. He blew it all in something like 2 years.

Desperate to regain his fortune, he went on to sitcom fame as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and while he had some pretty impressive moments on the show, you really couldn't take him seriously as an actor. But then Six Degrees of Separation came out and while it has its flaws, Smith's performance as a gay con man is not one of them. Then Bad Boys came out and all the good will he built up for me was lost. A junk movie with a junk performance, a major step back in my eyes. So much so that when I heard he was going to star in Independence Day, I lost all hope of it being a great movie and when I saw it my forecasts turned out to be true. His performance in it nearly killed it for me. Was he destined to be the next Richard Pryor, a potentially great star who could never make a good movie?

After Men In Black and Wild Wild West, I basically wrote him off. He seemed destined to be a shucking, jiving character and never the serious but entertaining lead man that I thought he had in him. A George Clooney type, who burns with charisma and looks like he could lead men into battle, but still has a bit of mischief in his eyes. Then he broke away from his tomfoolery and made one of my favorite movies of the last 10 years--Enemy of the State. From that jumping off point, it's been a steady climb for him to the top of the ranks.

For several years, Will Smith has been fighting to be among the elite of American movie stars. You know the select few who can act well enough for Oscar attention and still be a face that the Oscar-ignoring masses will pay to see. Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington top that list now, Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise used to be there. Will Smith is finally there.

I Am Legend raises his game to a whole new level. He literally carries the movie by himself, as Colonel Robert Neville, the last man living in New York City. A deadly virus has wiped out most of Manhattan and the few immune people like him, have been eaten by these living, rabid zombies.

Like vampires, sunlight is deadly to these zombies, so Smith and his trusty dog Sam roam the city freely during daylight. The movie is a tour-de-force for Smith, as he gets to talk to his dog and mannequins, with his usual carefree style, but then shows his acting muscle both when fear strikes him over the marauding invaders or deep melancholy for the past that is now all gone.

When he wakes up he watches old videos of morning newscasts. I guess if you're trying to survive, Katie Couric's morning smile will help you through the day. Why is he staying? Because Manhattan is Ground Zero from when the virus first struck and he is a top Army doctor desperately trying to find a cure.

The movie sometimes draws comparisons to Cast Away, which is the most recent film of that type, but it is a lot easier to see Smith relate to his dog than to a volleyball. It also draws comparisons to the dozen zombie movies we've seen over the last few years and ranks up there with the best of them for tension and scares, but unfortunately the zombies look very cartoonish in good lighting. Reminds me of the CGI in I Robot and Hulk. They did such a beautiful job of CGI matting New York City to look like an overgrown wasteland, why couldn't they have spent as much time on the creatures?

Sci-Fi/horror movies almost never win acting awards, but Smith deserves serious consideration for this role. The applause during the final credits tells you what the public thinks.

The Freditor