I Am Legend

“I AM LEGEND”, is about a Savior. Someone peculiarly chosen to save all mankind from the disease that has taken from us the most beautiful aspects of what we are…”

When doing a Christian Movie Review one of the things most apt to reasonably measure is what the film implies, either for or against, the Christian worldview. Really, nothing is neutral or value free. Everybody has an angle. Stories are incredibly persuasive instruments of communication because they can bypass through picture and sound our usual mechanisms of critical thought and move us emotionally to side with things that we might think less of were they presented with clarity of vision. Will Smith’s newest venture, like any film, has a story to tell and many things to say that are directly relevant to Christian thought. The movie does not dodge “religion”. It embraces a simple religious theme. It is a theme so strong in the film that the only way to miss it is to simply deny it any attention. That would be a big loss though because it is a story of unusual depth.

The first thing the avid reader might do is take the position that a classic style “Monster” movie cannot possibly leave much room for depth and meaning, especially of a Christian sort. But I would argue that that is not so true as it seems. Stories like “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” and even “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, are thick with moral themes and warnings of throwing off the protections of God and moral reasoning. (At least when you read the original works.) The dangers of tampering with nature in order to Deify ourselves in some way are common enough in these tales, and not to be overlooked as a tool toward deeper reflection.

“I AM LEGEND”, is about a Savior. Someone peculiarly chosen to save all mankind from the disease that has taken from us the most beautiful aspects of what we are. With the conceit so common to those involved in the sciences a ‘Cure’ for cancer has been created. We have genetically redesigned a disease and made the genome our toy having no idea what the consequences of such boldness might be, once the little monster we created begins to make its own way. We can control it. We can make nature our servant. There are no limitations to what we should do, only to what we can do. We can re-create ourselves in an image of our own preference.

The Bio-ethical implications and the warning being given is one that we can be reasonably sure will be completely ignored. What happens in today’s public square is this; common sense cautions about the consequences of artificially changing the germ-line in human beings through genetic re-design or manipulation are immediately disregarded as barbaric simple minded agrarian propaganda. Even though our current level of scientific ignorance is enormous we are not allowed to object. That we don’t have any idea what the consequences of such a thing might be in twenty or a hundred years doesn’t seem to be as lucrative a question as “What can we do, how can we do, and how can we make money on this?” We have already re-designed germs to make them weapons or war, now, how can we redesign humans to make them, “better”?

Will we make people monsters? Well, no. Of course not. That is not the point. (Well… maybe. It depends on how you measure it.) The point is that people are already monsters. The main character Robert Neville, played by Will Smith, is one of the few of those immune to the genetic correction that has the scientific understanding to try to find a cure. A cure for the cure. He survives alone, but not completely alone. He is really living in the midst of the “Dark Seekers” who live all around him, but can only survive in the lightless night, when they come out to hunt and kill and eat. I know you’ve heard this part before in other movies but they handle it pretty well. In this film it is all parabolic. The others don’t even know that they’ve lost something very important. Their reason, their compassion, their souls (so to speak). Neville’s goal is not to kill them, not to destroy them, but to “save” them, to cure them, to bring them back to the “light”.

Eventually Neville finds another immune survivor. (This isn’t really giving anything away because they show it in the previews.) The kicker is, she tells him that she was sent to him by God, because God told her that he is going to save the world. Now, this could easily turn ugly and become a needless and unprofitable attack against people of faith. Here comes the crazy religious person that always shows up in these movies with an eerie look in her eye and doom and foreboding on her lips. But they don’t go there. There’s an intense argument about God and evil, about the world John Neville lives in here, that leads to Neville’s emphatic summation, “There is no God!”, “There… Is … NO GOD!”. It’s pretty heavy, but you need to be patient. Watching someone struggle with their own suffering in the context of a loving God’s creation is never pleasant, but it is it’s place in the story that is important. Neville does not end up where he begins and what at one time he forcefully denies in another he powerfully embraces. Understanding what God is doing with the universe is not really for anybody to hand out. Our experiences are often unpleasant and sometimes horrific. But to take from this that there is no meaning, everything is accidental, and so there isn’t really any evil, and so no real problem, doesn’t seem to help. Atheistic views always end with the simple denial that the things we suffer have any real significance, and this is what leaves them morally vacuous.

(Spoiler) In the end Neville embraces his role as “Savior” (their word) and after arguing fruitlessly with his enemies to let him save them, gives his own life so that others might live and be healed of their infirmity. The narrator tells us that he gave his own life so that others might live, and that we should “let the light shine in the darkness.”

I know. It’s only a monster movie. I hope people don’t lose the good things that this film has to say amidst the blood and fangs and such, because these are good things to say, and an imaginative way to say it.

Cognative

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