What would you do if you were the last person on Earth? Have a tea party in Buckingham Palace? Tee off from the USS Intrepid? Well, first of all, I’d binge the entirety of Netflix and the best streaming services.
That’s something that Will Smith’s character Robert Neville didn’t have the pleasure of doing in 2007’s apocalyptic blockbuster I Am Legend which comes to Netflix on October 23rd. If he did, I’m sure the film would have involved a lot more sitting at home eating chocolate.
Based on an iconic (and pretty different – well worth a read) book of the same name by Richard Matheson, we follow Neville as he lives life as the only person in New York. After three years of isolation, he’s slowly going off the rails but he’s not completely alone at least. He has a bunch of models for company, his dog, Sam (arguably the best dog ever) oh and a horde of zombies.
Ok, they’re technically called darkseekers but for all purposes, they are a mix of zombie and vampire. Deadly hunters, but deathly weak to sunlight. As a virologist, Neville feels like he is uniquely qualified to develop a cure if by some miracle anyone else is out there. It’s a unique movie, anchored by Smith’s incredible performance, that I implore you to watch. For spectacle alone, there’s something beautiful about seeing major New York streets covered in weeds and empty (filming upset many locals with the closure of some of New York’s busiest walkways).
Amazingly, some 16 years later, there is now a sequel in the works. With Smith set to reprise his role and Michael B. Jordan also joining the franchise I’m already sold. A Beautiful Mind screenwriter Akiva Goldsman is also returning for the follow-up, which is confirmed but still apparently in the early stages.
October seems like a good month for blockbusters on Netflix including a Spiderman movie with 98% on Rotten Tomatoes also coming soon.