I have a few minutes that I can use to finish laundry, start dinner, or update my blog; so here I am, updating my blog. What a tough choice! 😉
Today I wanted to talk about a movie that Jeff and I saw about three weeks ago, and that has been haunting me ever since. As you may have guessed, the movie is “I am Legend”, an adaptation from the classic horror book by Richard Matheson , and played by the genious Will Smith (we’re huge fans of the Prince of Bel-Air, which was how he became famous). Basically the story is about a miracle cancer-curing vaccine that went horribly wrong. 90% of humanity dies immediately as a result of the vaccine, and those who don’t die, a)have natural immunity to the virus but are eaten by b) the vampire-zombies mutant people who hunt for blood. Eventually Neville (Smith) is the only survivor in New York City. His only company, a beautiful German Shepherd who belonged to his daughter. His wife and daughter had perished at the beginning of the pandemic; thus, they’re spared the horror the world has become.
Neville is a super-man in every sense of the word: he customizes and arms his house to be ready to protect him at night (when the zombies come out), he keeps studying and looking for a cure to the disease (even capturing zombies to test a vaccine, something that will threaten the life he has protected so much), he works out, he hunts (what a sight! deer running wild in NYC, and being hunted by lions!)
I’ll leave the summary at that, just warning people that the movie is not like a horror movie in the sense that they show gory stuff. It’s just so freaking scary because of the suspense, and because the reality of a pandemic could be so real!!!!!!!
There’ s two points from the movie that struck me as VERY controversial for our times. The first one is that a vaccine was the cathalist for the pandemic to be unleashed. And that’s very controversial nowadays because people have such blind fate in the vaccines we inject our children with. I know, some vaccines save lives, but so many others (even some of those who are harmless for someone can be fatal for someone else) are sooooo dangerous (the new HPV vaccine comes to mind. Yes, the one marketed for pre-teen girls suppossedly to prevent cervical cancer. It’s actually against the STD that creates a predisposition for cervical cancer). It just blows my mind how some people do all the research in the world when they need to buy a car or a house, but when it comes to the “medicines” they give their kids, they just trust the doctors blindly! I love medicine; I believe our lives are better because of all the advances in modern medicine (I would have died of post-partum infection last year if there weren’t antibiotics), but I also believe that we need to diligent and protect our kids and ourselves from things that are totally preventable. Yes, vaccines could protect against life-threatening diseases, but what about the good ol’ childhood illnesses that today are unheard of: chicken pox, measles, etc. Or if we get them, they’re even more dangerous because we’re fully vaccinated and nature has tried to outsmart man.
The other topic that stood out from the movie was the argument about God. In the movie, Neville says there could be no God at all in this world, but another character argues with him and shows him that even though mankind almost exterminated itself by playing “god”, God has a plan for us, and he wants us to be happy.
All in all, this movie really touched my heart and terrified me in so many ways, but I’m happy I saw it. On a very funny note, my best friend G had her mother-in-law tell her and husband to take advantage and go see a movie; she would stay with their baby. So they decided to take their other two kids to see…yes, you guessed it. They had no idea what the movie was about! The poor kids were terrified, but she and her husband didn’t want to miss the show, and they really wanted to see the end! So she said, maybe I’ve traumatized them for life. We’ll see in a few years. Jajajajajaja!