I AM LEGENT

ACTION

Dr. Krippen (Emma Thompson) is interviewed on TV about her great discovery: she has changed the measles virus genetically so that it attacks cancerous cells. She explains that all the cancer patients which her cure has been tested on have recovered so far. The scene jumps to three years later. We see New York City has become an empty and desolate place, devoid of human life. Grass covers roads and buildings, abandoned cars line the highways and the city is silent. It seems that apocalypse has arrived.

Robert Neville (Will Smith) is driving through the deserted city accompanied by Sam, his dog. A herd of deer leap across his path and he follows them gives chase at speed in the car. He tries to shoot them and we realise it's a hunt. The deer split up and run down a road blocked with abandoned cars. Neville gives chase on foot, trying to hunt one deer down. As he rounds a corner he gets the deer in his gun sights only to be beaten to the kill by a lion. lion, presumably escaped from NYC zoo. Robert is seemingly torn as to whether to shoot the lion and its family who also enter the scene. At this point his Robert's watch alarm starts beeping and he leaves, taking Sam with him. He leaves without firing the gun. We see Neville's home, it is the typical American detached house, but it looks as though it were in the middle of a war zone. They -Robert and Sam- have had a seemingly normal evening, eating processed food and watching tv. After a bath, Neville shuts, locks and protects every door and window with massive steel shutters. He sleeps close to Sam.

                 

He dreams of how Zoe (Salli Richardson), his now-late wife and their now-late child Marley (Willow Smith) and Sam the dog as a puppy and try to leave New York. We see Robert dressed in a military uniform: he decides to stay in New York on his own in order to try to stop the virus as he is a military doctor. They tell Marley they are going on holiday. The dream scene is interrupted by Neville waking to once again face his lonely reality.

At his fortress-like home, Robert exercises and goes down to the basement, where he keeps a small but hi-tech laboratory. We see that he has been experimenting with a vaccine / cure for the virus that has apparently wiped out most of the human race. He's tried the plague virus in some mice in order to find a vaccine. All the mice look incredibly aggressive, except for one. Robert will have to inject the blood of that mouse into a human victim of the virus to see if they revert back to regain their normal human life. characteristics. Later, Robert goes to a video-rental store where he talks to the mannequins, his only form of contact with the human form. It seems has created a game for himself to prevent madness from taking him. He later visits some condo flats nearby, watching sadly the remains of the people who used to live there. We see the pain in his eyes as he empathises with the loss of loved ones. Later, we hear the radio message Neville has created and plays over all AM radio frequencies. It says that he's alive, and that he'll be waiting for more survivors at the docks of the bay at midday everyday.