Anna tells him to “shine light in the darkness,” reminding me of the verse, “Those who
walk in the darkness have seen a great light (Jesus).” Lastly, like Jesus (Savior), he
gives up his own life, taking the pain and saves all those other people with his cure,
starting small with those people in the survivor colony and then going large. Jesus
started small with his disciples and those disciples told others and now there are
thousands of Christians. At first, Smith’s character doesn’t believe that there are any
other people alive when Anna tells him to go and to believe. She was right, by the way.

The whole darkness thing can be seen as sin and sin is like a virus, taking over our
culture and then Jesus is the cure. They all looked the same, showing how when you sin
and go with the crowd, it’s all about becoming the same: having the same values, looking
the same, etc. I also noticed that there hair came off and it was like they were falling
apart. Many people who sin feel like their lives are falling apart. Once the humans and
animals became infected with the virus (sin), they began to become aggressive and kill
other people.

Throughout the movie, Neville protects himself so that he will stay alive. In a way, many
Christians protect themselves from people who sin. We don’t hang out with those “type” of
people. If you noticed, however, the only way he could find a cure and save the infected
humans was to risk his life and deal with them face to face.

Lastly, Neville (Smith’s character), felt like he was all alone. Sometimes, Christians
feel all alone because so many people their age are sinning. He got angry at Anna when he
found out he was not alone. This kind of reminded me of Christians with pride. We feel
like we may be alone at times, but that we’re better than everyone else (we’re not
infected). He had to realize that at the end, he couldn’t save humanity by himself; he
needed Anna. We have to realize that we can’t save others through Christianity by
ourselves. We also need help. I thought one of the most powerful moments in the movies
was at the end, when Neville, yells “I can save you! I will save you!” and the people
just keep pounding on the glass, ready to kill him. He then hands the tube with the cure
to Anna and says, “This is why you’re here.” She came to him at the right time at the
right place so that she could help him save humanity and carry on his legend.

I’m the editor of New Man magazine. I was wondering if I could reprint your I am Legend review in our e-newsletter.

Please let me know ASAP whether this is possible. Also, I need your real name.

Thanks!

Drew Dyck

Hollywood today didn’t want to make that point so obvious, but you can’t redo the movie and escape it.

The other great symbolism in I Am Legend is the heaven scene. The girl arrives at the gates of Heaven which swing open. Inside, the gates are guarded by two angels. Before she enters, she gives them the blood, the cure for the death. The first thing you see is a church (the throne) in the center. Can’t miss that.

Question is, how deliberate are these filmmakers in presenting the gospel? Not very. What they cannot escape from is that they are using borrowed capital. That is, the entirety of creation and the redemption story itself belongs to the God of Christianity. The moment they try and tell any story, they have to use our material. For instance, remember the quip about the scientist who goes to God and says, “We don’t need you anymore, we can now create man by ourselves.” God says, “Fine, go ahead.” The man reaches down and grabs a handful of dirt and God says, “Sorry, get your own dirt.” You can’t write a story without using God’s dirt.

Whenever you watch any movie, it is not hard to find Jesus. A quest my own pastor has is to find the Jesus figure in every movie. No, he won’t be as obvious as Neville. He might be as vague as Napoleon Dynamite. He might be someone who in reality is pretty darn far from Jesus. But they are the savior. They got their ideas from the Law that was written on their hearts. They just can’t escape that.

Every movie has a certain framework to it. You need tension, conflict, and resolution. The resolution comes in the form of a Jesus figure. Now I am wondering how many of you are going to go back and rewatch Napolean Dynamite.

Fred