Warner Bros. packaged this DVD with The Book of Eli as a "double feature." I had never seen such a set before; the two movies are unrelated, not involving any of the same actors, the same director, or even the same production companies. They just came out a few years apart and center on a lone Black man in a post-apocalyptic America, each with someone claiming to have been guided by a mysterious, potentially divine voice toward a cause for hope. That's about where the similarity ends. IAL actually merits a horror classification.
A scientist (Emma Thompson) reengineers a virus to cure cancer. It appears to work beautifully at first but quickly mutates, killing 90% of the world's populations and turning 9% into "Darkseekers," who are like fast zombies with the appearance and light allergy of vampires. Colonel Robert Neville (Will Smith) volunteers to remain in a cut-off Manhattan as the only known uninfected human survivor, accompanied by his dog, Sam, as he hopes to find a way to give the Darkseekers his immunity before he succumbs to either them or insanity from isolation.
In some ways, this is a gentler dystopia than in TBoE. It's only three years since the outbreak, so Robert still has easy access to various modern urban resources, including electricity. Out in daylight, he needn't worry about anything worse than the occasional zoo escapee. But he has to close all the shutters at home by sunset, and thinking about it gives him PTSD flashbacks about his wife (Salli Richardson) and daughter (Willow Smith!). Also, the Darkseekers may not speak, but they have a leader and can learn....
One complaint I've seen about this picture is that the Darkseekers are CG. It's not Jumanji bad, but they'd scare us more if they were actors in makeup. To me, the main fright factor is in jump scares, for which I had braced myself.
Indeed, the story works better as tragedy than horror, as hinted by supplemental DVD animations. Many of the 101 minutes do not bother with suspense or plot progression. Family aside, I might as well warn you that Sam sticks around a good while, but her survival instincts are not the best for her world.
Not that Robert always has good ideas either. Viewers have pointed out that some of his protective measures would be beyond useless. Guess he lucked out in picking an address with especially unobservant neighbors.
It's a pity, because Smith put a lot of effort into getting things right. He talked to virologists and prisoners and spent time getting to know (and love) one of the dogs. Perhaps this is what happens when a project gets greenlit ahead of the script: Some elements are effective, but the writing leaves something to be desired.
IAL gets a better reception than the two earlier adaptations of Richard Matheson's novel, The Omega Man and The Last Man on Earth. I won't be checking them out. As it stands, this movie is about half emotionally successful and less fun than TBoE. But at least it's the most Halloween-appropriate fare I've seen so far this month.
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