Warning: there are some small spoilers, but nothing to ruin the movie for you!
Yesterday, I went to the opening show of one of most unexpectedly redemptive movies I think I’ve seen in a long time: I Am Legend.
It’s a dystopic horror/drama film staring Will Smith who plays the part of Dr. Robert Neville, a military virologist who was responsible for helping develop a virus that cured cancer. Except, that cure mutated into a more sinister virus that killed 90% of the population and left nearly all of the rest rabinously warped, broken, un-humans.
So the human efforts at putting humans to rights backfired and created more chaos, a symbol I think was intensional. Perhaps in the same way our sophisticated modern efforts at restoring humanity have resulted in more chaos, this film mirrors arrogant autonomous Man’s efforts at self/societal salvation.
In this post-viral apocalypse, Dr. Neville is alone with his dog Samantha and isolated on Staten Island. He must forage for food and survive the scavenging un-humans that come out at night. They can only come out at night because the the UV from sunlight eats at their bodies; the un-humans love darkness rather than light.
He also spends the day working furiously on a cure. At the beginning he had the chance to abandon the start of the chaos and flee with His family. Instead, despite all of his power and priviledge as a Coloniel in the military, Dr. Nevillehe decided to come and stay with the chaos to find a cure.
At one point Neville is found by another immune human and they talk about how God could have done this. Neville responds that it wasn’t God’s fault, we did it to ourselves. But in the next breath he also declares God’s (seeming) absent from the chaos: out of 6 billion people, 90% are dead; 9% are the rabinous un-humans, and 1% are immune and cured by the virous. How can there be a god in all of this chaos, where is He?
Neville expresses the very real and gritty tension we humans have with living in so much chaos: we know it’s our fault, but wonder where God is. Instinctively we know this world is not the way it is suppose to be, that we have brought upon ourselves this un-humanity, but we still shout “God where the hell are you? Why have you abandoned us?”
At the end, Neville squares off with the power figure of the un-humans in one climactic, redemptive moment. While I won’t give the ending away, Neville realizes the cure “is in the blood.” And as he faces off with the un-humans he cries out “Stop, I can save you! I can save you,” providing a perfect parallel to the Light that invaded the Darkness 2,000 years ago.
Nestled in the scream coming from the swaddling-clothed Babe is the cry, “I can save you!” Sandwiched in between the “forgive them for they know not what they do” and “it is finished” the Savior screams “it’s in the blood!”, “I CAN SAVE YOU!”
In one felled swoop this movie expressed the beauty and grandeur of the gospel: Jesus and His blood can save the world, can bring the restoration it and we all moan for. And in the end that’s what Dr. Neville brings: as the movie says, “he helped restore humanity.” He lit the darkness.
In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. -John 8
Jeremy,
what a great $8 we spent last night. I’m still processing the parallels between the movie and the Gospel.
I think the verse you ended your post with almost seems like the core element of the movie. In some sense the movie extrapolates that verse in a drama.
check out my post on the movie and the implications I see for our presentation of the gospel.
Jason
Your reflection on the movie is spot on. I went to see the movie last night and that’s all I could think about. I know the movie is based off a book or movie from the 1950’s… I wonder what parallels are like in the original and if the big screen adaptation has taken any liberties. Anyway, great post.
I didn’t want to read your review until I saw the movie last night. I didn’t get all of that out of watching it. It just seemed a typical horror movie to me. But I guess you can read that stuff into it. And it does make a great parallel now that I think about it. If it wasn’t rated R and so scary I’d show it to my high schoolers. Don’t know how well that would go over with administration though…
There is a really interesting marketing site for I am Legend that deals with all the themes you’ve just discussed. It centers around the sign we see in the beginning of the movie that declares “God Still Loves Us” and uses it to launch forum discussions and drive a photography contest. the website is http://www.godstilllovesus.org
I am a church planting pastor near Raleigh, NC and saw the movie as you did. I walked away with virtually identical conclusions. I was stunned by the spiritual parallels with the gospel truth. I believe there are even more than you have commented on here as the final character arrives in Vermont to “evangelize” the survivors. I’ve mentioned these observations to other believers and it was interesting to me how few people, whom I would describe as spiritually discerning, actually saw the obvious parallels. I fear that most believers are not very discerning, which is what we ought to really fear the most. Whether attending a concert, a movie or listening to a poetry reading, American believers have shallow skills when it comes to dissecting the culture. What a shame! Keep up the good thoughts.
Why, and on what basis do you assume/presume that the poster was referring to either Jesus or the God of Christianity.
As far as I remember there was no Christian references in the movie at all.
And besides, there is no “outside” deity that is going to “save” us.
Humankind altogether has created the so called “culture” that we now “live” in.
And Humankind, altogether has to do something radically different to turn the dark momentum around.
There is no “outside” help.